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[h=1]Britain's Amir Khan claims stunning victory over Zab Judah in Vegas[/h] Judah takes a 10-count in the fifth round
Khan denies low-blow charge
Khan denies low-blow charge
- Kevin Mitchell in Las Vegas
- guardian.co.uk, Sunday 24 July 2011 08.06 BST Article history
Amir Khan outboxed Zab Judah to unify the WBA and IBF light-welterweight titles. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Action Images
Another stunning win in Las Vegas on his second visit to boxing's unofficial capital left Amir Khan's new American friends smiling and Zab Judah counted out on his knees, theatrically doubled over and clutching his belly, then crying foul.
Khan outboxed a once fine 33-year-old fighter just about all the way from the opening bell to 13 seconds from the end of the fifth round to unify two strands of the world light-welterweight title with a crunching right that disappeared into Judah's gut on the waistband of his shorts.
Victory keeps the Bolton fighter on track for a step up to welterweight next year and a mega-fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr, who says he is keen to accept the challenge and willing to come to the UK, preferably at Wembley, if the money is right. Guesses at how much that would be worth to each fighter, especially if it coincides with the lead-up to the Olympics, would have to start at £10m.
Before then, Khan will have one more fight at 10 stones, against either the unbeaten WBC and WBO champion Timothy Bradley, who withdrew from this fight and is embroiled in a legal row with his manager, or the winner of the bout between the Californian Robert Guerrero and Marcos Maidana, the Argentinian Khan beat here in a contest the American boxing writers judged their fight of the year.
There can be little argument Khan is lighting up the fight game in the United States. This was an even better showing than the Maidana win and, while Khan's Golden Boy promoter, Richard Schaefer, might have been guilty of exaggeration in claiming the WBA and new IBF champion would soon be the best fighter in the world, his near-perfect performance was garlanded with justified praise from HBO's veteran commentator, Jim Lampley, who described him as "a rocket going north" and "a real star".
It was a pity Judah, a God-fearing, one-time wild man from the streets of Brownsville, did not take defeat graciously. He did little for righteousness when he declared, "I don't make no excuses but that was a low shot. I went down and the referee was counting, I figured he was counting for a low blow the eight count to get myself together. But when I heard him say 'nine, 10, it's over', I said, 'What do you mean it's over? It's a low blow.' We'll have the right people take a look at it. But Khan fought a good fight."
"I don't think it was a low blow," Khan said. "It was a clean shot and the referee was there. In my eyes it was a clean shot, just above the belt. Zab took the shot. It was a very hard shot and we'd been working on it throughout our camp. It happened naturally, I fired the uppercut and it worked for me."
The referee Vic Drakulich from Reno, Nevada, thought it fair and took up the count as soon as Judah went to the floor. Judah's claim that he thought Drakulich was giving him an eight-count for a low blow was ludicrous; no such rule exists in professional boxing, although it does apply in the amateurs.
Khan said, "It was nowhere near below [the belt], it was a great shot. I knew he was getting hurt, moving away and ducking. The shot that took him out hit him right on the belt. If it had gone another few rounds, I would have knocked him out. I was hurting him and it was only a matter of time. Zab's a great fighter. I respect him a lot."
That conclusion by Khan was a charitable observation. His opponent's rush to claim he had been hard done by convinced no one but his connections and also suggested an attempt to grab a win by a disqualification that would have been wholly at odds with the action that had gone before.
The Events Center of the Mandalay Bay Casino was maybe three-quarters occupied by more than 7,000 paying customers and a majority were pulling for Khan, even though Judah has lived in the city for several years.
The three judges gave Khan every round, as did any knowledgeable observer at ringside. Had the fight gone much longer, he would have either stopped or beaten up badly on Judah, who, despite showing flashes of the skill that had won him titles at light-welter and welter over the past decade, was off the pace and out of range.
Khan was too quick, too slick and hit way too hard for Judah. Wary of the southpaw's heavy left, he boxed at distance in round one, moving mostly to his left and jabbing to head and body to unsettle Judah.
In the second, Judah was falling short with his sporadic jabs, while Khan hooked around those few leads and scored with right crosses that left a cut on his opponent's mouth.
Judah found his range with a pair of rights at the start of the third but missed with a wild left hook.
Khan worked patiently behind his jab. At the end of the session, Judah's new trainer, Pernell Whitaker, pleaded with him to throw his left hook/uppercut, but the fourth passed with no evidence the fighter was willing to risk it, and Khan eased further ahead.
The fifth followed the pattern, Khan hunting Judah down and scoring with sharp head shots that raised a slight swelling around his right eye. Judah looked distressed under pressure and clearly was hurt when Khan drilled a solid left through his guard. His head drooped and Khan measured him for the final punch, an uppercut to his midriff as lethal as it was legal.
