By Bill Phanco: Former two division world champion Zab Judah (42-7, 29 KO’s) sees himself beating WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (25-0, 16 KO’s) on February 9th in Brooklyn, New York and handing him his first defeat of his still young career. In analyzing Garcia’s game, Judah feels that all Garcia has is a left hook and he sees him as a fighter that has been over-hyped by boxing fans.
Judah said to boxingsocialist.com “He [Garcia] hasn’t got anything I haven’t seen before. Andy Garcia [Danny’s father] is going to have to come into the ring to pick him up. If he don’t come in and pick him up then that’s on him. [He] Can leave his son laying there leaking. I ain’t got nothing to do with that. They call me the donut man. I eat zeros.”
For Judah to win this fight he’s going to have to avoid Garcia’s main weapon his left hook. Judah will have a big speed advantage over Garcia, but the advantage won’t mean anything for Judah if he can’t get out of the way of Garcia’s left hook.
Garcia’s been knocking guys out lately with that weapon in beating Amir Khan and Erik Morales. It’s going to be tough for Judah to keep him getting hit with that punch, however, because he relies way too much on luring his opponents in so that he can land big uppercuts on them.
Judah uses his uppercut a lot now, and he likes to retreat to the ropes where he waits for his opponents to come at him. While that may be a good thing if he can land one of those big shots on the button, it’s going to leave Judah vulnerable to getting hit with one of Garcia’s lefts.
Judah’s legs don’t look like they used to because he’s slowed down a lot in the last couple of years. He did beat Lucas Matthysse a couple of years ago in a surprising 12 round decision, but Judah looked bad in getting stopped by Khan in July of 2011.
Judah only fought once in 2012, beating previously undefeated Vernon Paris by a 9th round TKO. It was a good win for Judah, but Paris was totally unproven before that fight, so it’s not really a super win compared if Judah had beaten someone a little established.