LAS VEGAS – It was a career on the borderline. Zab Judah always walked it. Amir Khan knocked him off of it Saturday night with a body punch. There will be controversy about the punch. Legal? Illegal? Below-the-belt? Right on it?
Review the video. Go ahead and argue. Judah surely will. He always has. Judah and controversy are a combination, if not a tiresome redundancy. There’s no way to separate them. Perhaps, Judah is an older, wiser man.
Perhaps, Judah has changed. There’s no doubt that Khan has. He changes and changes a little bit for the better almost every time he steps through ropes for a significant fight. He confounded Judah seconds after the opening bell, moving in-and-out foot and landing precise jabs as he circled to his right.
Judah, whose right eye was slightly hurt in an apparent collision in the first round, appeared confused, then weary. He began to drop his right hand, leaving himself wide open to Khan combos that were sure to come. They didn’t, only because of body shot in the fifth round that put Judah on his hands-and-knees before he started arguing.
Judah bent over after he was rocked by a right hand. As he held on, Khan threw another right to the body. At first, it looked as if it might have been below the belt.
But repeated reviews from different angles of video at the Mandalay Bay Events Center appeared to show that the punch landed right on Judah’s belt, gold above his black trunks. At 2:47 of the round, referee Vic Drakulich counted out Judah, a loser by knockout. Other than the ensuing controversy, there was nothing technical about it.
“The shot when he went down was clean on the belt,’’ said Khan, who earned a minimum of 1.07 million and added Judah’s IBF junior-welterweight belt to his WBA title “If the fight had gone a few more rounds, I would have knocked him out with a clean shot. I knew he was hurt. It was only a matter of time.’’
At ringside, a theory quickly began to circulate about whether Judah simply went down to avoid the beating that seemed to be inevitable. His post-fight comments only seemed to support that speculation.
“I thought it was a low blow,’’ said Judah, who collect a minimum of $500,000. “I thought the referee was trying to give me a standing 8-count. I didn’t understand.’’
Yeah, it is hard to understand how Judah thought he could get a standing eight count when he was on hands, knees, an occasional elbow and never his feet.
On the back of Judah’s belt, there was this inscription: Godspeed.
Should have been goodbye.
On the undercard
The Best: It was another chapter in an ongoing comeback for Texas middleweight James Kirkland (29-1, 26 KOs), who scored his second successive stoppage by putting an overwhelmed Alexis Hlores (15-3-2, 11 KOs) onto his knees at 28 seconds of the second. Kirkland, who is fighting to restore his earlier promise after a stretch in prison, scored a first-round KO after he got knocked out in April.
The Rest: Unbeaten Peter Quillen (25-0, 19 KOs) threw chocolate kisses at the crowd and the corner for Jason LeHoullier (21-6-1, 8 KOs) of Dover, NH, threw in the towel at 1:38 of the fifth after the Brooklyn middleweight nicknamed Kid Chocolate punished him wit body shots and uppprcuts;
featherweight Gary Russell (17-0, 10 KOs) of Capitol Heights, MD, put some more polish on an already bright future by scoring one knockdown and winning all eight rounds in a one-sided decision over Eric Estrada (9-2, 3 KOs) of Chicago;
Philadelphia heavyweight Bryant Jennings (9-0, 4 KOs) was stronger and faster throughout six rounds for a unanimous decision over Theron Johnson (5-6, 1 KO) of Chicago;
lightweight Jamie Kavanaugh (8-0, 3 KOs) of Hollywood, Calif., won a six-round unanimous decision over Marcos Herrera (6-6-1, 2 KOs) of Arvada, Calif.;
Brooklyn super-middleweight Josiah Judah (10-1-1, 2 KOs) scored a six-round majority decision over Rafal Jastrzebski (4-7-1, 1 KOs) of Poland;
junior-lightweight Ronny Rios (15-0, 7 KOs) of Santa Ana, Calif., moved in a hurry and finished Noe Lopez (8-9, 5 KOs) in a hurry, stopping the Mexican at 1:12 of the first round.
