By Dan Ambrose: Former two division world champion Zab Judah (40-6, 27 Ko’s) was extremely lucky to get the nod over Lucas Matthysse in his last fight in November 2010, winning by a controversial 12 round split decision. Judah, an old 33, will now be facing a completely different type of fighter in Kaizer Mabuza (23-6-3, 14 KO’s) in their fight for the vacant International Boxing Federation (IBF) light welterweight title on March 5th at the Prudential Center, in Newark, New Jersey.

Like his fight against Matthysse, Judah will have the advantage of fighting at home, so if the fight is even remotely close, Judah will likely be given another decision win. However, Mabuza, 31, is a punching machine and isn’t thinking decision. He’s going to push Judah hard, tire him out and take him out threw sheer pressure and high volume punching. Judah is a lot like an old car at this point in his career. He’s okay as long as the fight is moved at a slow pace, but if you pressure him and force him to fight harder than his old body can safely carry him, he tends to break down and get stopped.

This is what happened in Judah’s loss to Joshua Clottey, and well as his defeat to Miguel Cotto. Mabuza is better than Clottey and better in some ways than Clotto. Mabuza fights at a much faster pace than either of those guys and he may be the worst possible opponent that Judah could think of fighting at this point in his career. Mabuza is coming off of an easy 6th round stoppage of Kendall Holt in February 2010, a fight in which Holt looked totally unprepared for the pressure and punch volume that Mabuza was pouring out. Mabuza was far too strong and too rugged for Holt to keep up with him. I expect to see Judah get broken down in the same way that Holt was by Mabuza.