[bigben]

Judah-Mayweather: Breaking down the action -
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“Sworn Enemies”?

I’m not sure the promoters did this fight justice with such a ridiculous moniker for an athletic competition between two friends. Granted, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Zab Judah will step into the ring and try to rip each other’s heads off, unlike Hasim Rahman and Monte Barrett or Chris Byrd and DaVarryl Williamson, who were also friends that “fought,” but seemed scared to damage each other’s eyelashes.

Nevertheless, it will be violence borne out of an insatiable hunger to win and an even larger ego of not wanting to lose to “one of the boys.” Not violence beget by anger.

The truth of the matter is that Mayweather and Judah aren’t enemies today. They won’t be enemies tomorrow. And they absolutely will not be enemies once the fight ends, unless one of them does something despicable like bite off an ear.

Saturday’s fight is all about elite competition between two of the sport’s true Ferraris. So, let’s dispense with all the garbage about hatred and jump right into what matters – the fight itself.

Mayweather (35-0, 24 KOs) is the best fighter in the game, bar none. Don’t pay any mind to those that try to put Ronald “Winky” Wright or any other flavor of the month anywhere close, because “Pretty Boy” Floyd is in a class all by himself, much like Roy Jones Jr. a few years ago, and, dare I say better than “Sugar” Ray Leonard during his pound-for-pound reign. Yes, that is an outlandishly aggressive statement. But it is one that holds water, as the former three-division world champion is equally above his peers like Jones and Robinson before him.

What makes Mayweather so great is that he is the closest thing to a perfect fighter in the game today. Physically, he has it all – awe-inspiring speed, cat-like reflexes, punching power (maybe not the one-punch type, but enough to hurt a bigger, stronger Arturo Gatti), and amazing cardiovascular conditioning.


Mayweather's blend of speed and power is nothing to be taken lightly by
anyone, including Judah
While boxing is filled with gifted athletes with similar physical traits, the part that separates Mayweather from the rest is his equally impressive technical skills.

Offensively, Mayweather’s punches are short and crisp, or he can loop his shots around a particular defensive stance, if need be. His punch arsenal is extremely varied. The 29-year-old can dominate his foe with nothing but the jab. He can fire lead right hands all night in search of a knockout. He can lead with left hooks. And he can even put unconventional combinations together, such as triple left hooks, or a lead right followed by a right uppercut, or even a double right hand followed by a left bolo punch.

Mayweather is also an extremely efficient puncher. Because of eye-hand coordination and speed, Mayweather is able to land at alarming connect rates in many of his fights, to the tune of 50-60 percent. And that holds true whether he is fighting from a distance, like he did against Diego Corrales, or standing right in the pocket, like against Jose Luis Castillo.

Speaking of standing in the pocket, name another fighter in the game who can stand toe to toe with his opponent and not suffer so much as a scratch on his face. James Toney is skilled at defending himself with shoulder rolls and upper body movement on the inside, but Mayweather is the master, holding opponents to single-digit, and in some instances zero, punches landed in a round.

And those aren’t isolated instances in Mayweather fights. Victoriano Sosa never landed more than nine punches in any single round of his 12-round affair against Mayweather. The grossly overmatched Henry Bruseles landed 10 or more punches only three times in eight rounds. And Gatti landed a paltry 41 shots in six rounds, for a 17-percent connect rate.

Yes, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is that good.

With all that said, no human is truly perfect. Mayweather is mortal just like the rest of us. In his two fights with Castillo, Pretty Boy Floyd showed that he can be susceptible to a guy who throws a ton of punches, particularly to the body, while smothering him against the ropes or in the corners. It’s not that he doesn’t have the goods to deal with such an attack. He could easily rely on his excellent jab, speed and footwork to just box on the outside. But the pound-for-pound king is so good at deflecting or slipping shots on the inside that he isn’t getting hit cleanly, allowing a guy to outwork him even though the attacker isn’t landing much of consequence. Still, that situation runs a very real risk of the judges scoring rounds for the busier fighter, something that could comeback to haunt Mayweather someday.


If Judah (right) finds Mayweather's chin, it could be goodnight
In addition, Mayweather still has a very real question mark surrounding his chin. We saw that in his 140-pound debut against DeMarcus “Chop Chop” Corley and again in his 147-pound debut against Sharmba Mitchell. While he won both fights with relative ease, almost shutting out Corley and stopping Mitchell, he got rocked in both fights by guys who aren’t known as punchers. One must wonder, therefore, what will happen if a destructive puncher like Judah smacks him on the button this Saturday night.

Judah is one of those genetic freaks that can match Mayweather on almost every level physically speaking. Judah is equally fast of hand and foot, always shows up in great shape and is the bigger puncher of the pair. The last attribute, punching power, is where Judah holds a very real advantage, likely his only one.

Unlike Mayweather, Judah (34-3, 25) has the juice to drop a foe with a single shot. He can hurt guys with either hand, but his real bread-and-butter shot is the straight left hand. That’s the shot that can turn out the lights for the 10-count in the blink of an eye. And he can set the punch up with a surprisingly effective jab for a southpaw, which makes him a terrifically dangerous offensive fighter.

But as good as Judah is offensively, he is equally flawed defensively. Blessed with all the speed and reflexes that a fighter could dream of, the Brooklyn native has a bad habit of pulling straight back to avoid shots, and he does so with his hands down and his chin up. It’s a mistake that many of the truly gifted athletes make, because they are relying on their tremendous reflexes and speed, rather than sound technique, to avoid incoming fire.

The world saw a perfect example of that flaw in Judah’s game when he faced Cory Spinks first fight. To make matters worse, Judah had his feet too close together, another bad habit, leaving him off balance. As a result, Spinks dropped him with only a slightly better than average punch.

Of course, it’s no secret that Judah’s biggest concern going into any fight is his chin. Kostya Tszyu wrecked his world with a single, massive right hand back in 2001. Carlos Baldomir, a supposed feather-fisted foe, put him on a pair of stilts with a right hand of his own back in January. While Mayweather is no Tzsyu in terms of power, he certainly blasts as hard as Baldomir. So, Judah must be mindful of protecting his chin on Saturday night.

The biggest misconception that most have going into this fight is that Judah is the naturally bigger man simply because he’s competed at a heavier weight for most of his career. According to the official tale of the tape, Mayweather is actually one-inch taller and equals or exceeds Judah in chest size, biceps, wrist, fist, waist, thighs and neck. The only measurements Judah wins are reach (by one inch) and forearms, though one must always question the reliability of any “tale of the tape.”

Once the bell rings, however, all those measurements won’t mean a thing. This fight will be decided by one question: Does Judah land the homerun bomb or not?

If Judah doesn’t hurt Mayweather with an explosive punch, he can’t win. Pretty Boy Floyd is simply a better fighter. That means Judah needs to transform the action into a street fight. He needs to bully Mayweather to the ropes and fire shots with reckless abandon, risking getting knocked out just to land a bone-crushing shot of his own.

Otherwise, this fight could look remarkably like Mayweather-Gatti.

[naught33]

this should be a good fight, its been a while since we have seen one, im def looking fwd to this one!

[dananderson32]

me too naught im all over this one