By Dan Ambrose: Former two division world champion Zab Judah (40-6, 27 KO’s) has seen his best days and he’s now cruising into the twilight of his once promising career. Judah is now 33, and no longer dominating opponents like he once was earlier in his career. Judah will be fighting South African Kaizer Mabuza (23-6-3, 14 KO’s) on March 5th in a 12 round bout for the vacant IBF light welterweight title at the Prudential Center, in Newark, New Jersey.

This is a fight that is kind of deceiving because when you look at the 31-year-old Mabuza’s career record, you just immediately think Judah should win this fight without too many problems because of all Mabuza’s losses on his resume and because of the quality of opposition that he’s lost his fights to. However, Mabuza is one of those fighters that suffered most of his losses earlier in his career before he knew how to fight properly.

Once he figured out what he was doing, Mabuza improved dramatically and hasn’t lost a fight in three years and has won his last eight fights during that time. Most recently, Mabuza stopped Kenal Holt, the former WBO light welterweight champion, in a 6th round stoppage last year in February in a one-sided fight. Mabuza just kept pouring over Holt, hitting him with punch after punch and pressuring him until he eventually was badly cut and ended up folding.

Judah found success at welterweight after moving up from the light welterweight division in 2004. The success didn’t last long, though, as Judah quickly turned out to be little more than an opponent for champions to sharpen their teeth on beat up. After a loss to Joshua Clottey in 2008, Judah finally got a clue that he needed to move back down to the light welterweight division. Judah looked good at first but was incredibly lucky in his last fight against Lucas Matthysse last November, winning thef ight by a 12 round split decision while fighting at home in Newark. Let’s be honest here: Judah lost that fight and got what you call a home town decision.