Only days after it was confirmed by Golden Boy and Main Events that WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan and IBF champion Zab Judah will meet on July 23rd, and the rivalry between the two sets of fans is already heating up.
Until now things were largely friendly between the two sides, until earlier today when Judah decided to retweet several racially offensive messages sent to him by fans.
Although not the original author of the messages, Judah did rather irresponsibly repost them to his just over 25,000 followers, much to the anger of many Khan fans.
“Beat that shilpa shetti looking mother f****r”
“CurryKingKhan will be choking on his Samosa reading these tweets! Zab by vicious KO!”
Judah then denied any wrongdoing, before entirely missing the point of why he had offended people in the first place:
“Hey I’m far from RACIST I LOVE Everybody!! And plus I’m Black so what are you saying!!!”
(In Judah’s mind being black apparently means that he is free to broadcast racist messages directed towards Khan, who is British of Pakistani descent)
Khan fans quickly responded, some with equally offensive messages of their own. Most on both sides however were simply disappointed that the banter had descended into racial territory.
“see your racist retweets we had respect for u as a person and the boxing banter was cool but we will not tolerate racism”
Khan meanwhile, who has thus far not responded to the messages, began training at the Wild Card gym in Los Angeles last week, and is once again working with both trainer Freddie Roach and strength and conditioning expect Alex Ariza, the latter of whom he didn’t use for his most recent fight due to a now resolved financial dispute.
Golden Boy formally apologize to Pacquiao, time Floyd Mayweather followed suit
Judah isn’t the only fighter in hot water over foolish tweeting of late however. Advertisement
Andre Berto yesterday suggested that Victor Ortiz used some kind of performance enhancing drugs prior to their April bout that saw Berto lose his WBO welterweight title and suffer his first career loss. He later tried to claim that he simply meant supplements, although to be frank wasn’t fooling anyone.
Berto’s accusation:
“Yo this is the main question I get from fans and boxing people. Did they drug test Ortiz?”
“N there is a reason why he came into the ring 165 pounds. I know people close to him and his camp and I know exactly we he was taking”
And later his unconvincing backtracking:
“Wow why does everyones mind go straight to PEDs. Calm down everyone I was just talkin about Ortiz eating his spinach like popeye lol”
Only weeks ago both Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather Jr. also got in on the act, shared an entirely fabricated story regarding Manny Pacquiao in which a supposed former sparring partner claimed to have injected the Filipino star with steroids and later HGH on a regular basis.
Mosley, Mayweather quick to spread false Pacquiao steroid story
Getting back to Judah however, it perhaps shouldn’t be too surprising that he has once again offended fans given his track record. Judah not so long ago said to FightHype that he believes Manny Pacquiao’s fights are staged:
“I?ve been watching the Pacquiao showdowns and you know, I think a lot of them are staged”
There was the infamous street brawl he got into several years ago while playing dice in the street, and his attack on a referee after losing to Kostya Tszyu.
So it could well be a case of Judah either not having the sense to know any better, or simply wanting to create some pre-fight hype.
Dan Brookes, Pitt: “Judah is always coming out with stupid stuff that gets him in trouble, maybe he’s following Floyd’s example with the Asian stuff”
