09.01.06 – By James Allan: I don’t often take a pleasure in hearing of a champion’s defeat. Boxers have to work long and hard to reach the top of the fight game and no matter how arrogant or obnoxious they may be, I always feel some sort of pity for them when they lose their titles. However, in Zab Judah’s case I must confess that a smile found its way on to my face when I heard that he had lost to Carlos Baldomir.. I didn’t smile because I don’t like Judah, though it has to be said that he is a bit of a prima donna with a fairly bad attitude, (witness his performance after referee Jay Nady quite rightly stopped his fight against Kostya Tszyu in the second round). No, the reason I smiled was because I felt this result made the chances of a Floyd Mayweather v Ricky Hatton match-up much more likely to happen.
If Floyd really wants to cement his position as the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world today, then he really has to take on Hatton. When I heard him talking about a match-up with Judah, I pretty much convinced myself that the chances of him ever facing Ricky were slim or none. I could foresee the Mayweather v Judah fight taking place, then no matter if Floyd won or lost, probably a rematch and then depending on whether he won or lost that fight either a third meeting or else Floyd taking on some fairly mundane defences in the Welterweight division before calling it a day and declaring himself the Greatest Fighter of all Time. Real champions don’t talk about moving up in weight while they still have work to do. Floyd may well have convinced himself that he is the man at Light Welterweight but until he faces and beats Hatton, he hasn’t proved it.
Maybe he doesn’t fancy taking Hatton on. After watching him stop Tszyu and Maussa in that come-forward, non-stop pressure style of his, he couldn’t be blamed. Hatton’s way of fighting would undoubtedly give Floyd problems but if I were to put a bet on the outcome of a fight between the two of them, my money would be on Mayweather. I think he would be too quick and too slick for Hatton. I don’t think he would punch hard enough to stop him but I could envisage a wide points verdict for him. Floyd has fought and beaten Diego Corrales, Jose Luis Castillo, Angel Manfredy, Genaro Hernandez, Arturo Gatti, all of them good fighters. He cannot be accused of being unwilling to face the best a division has to offer, until now that is. Now that a fight with Judah has been all but blown out of the water, he might just see sense and realise that the most sensible and the most lucrative fight for him now is against Hatton.