Unification bouts rarely come without a lot on the line for both champions.
In the case of light welterweights Amir Khan who holds the WBA title and IBF belt holder Zab Judah who meet this Saturday at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, there might be even more at stake than usual.
Judah at 33 has been here many times before, and truth be told has tended to lose when it has mattered most. Albeit with most of those losses coming at welterweight and Judah managing to come back after each one to win further titles.
Even for a prodigious talent like Judah though climbing back up to the top gets a little harder each time and he came a lot closer to losing than he would have liked against the twice recently unlucky Lucas Matthysse.
A loss to Khan on Saturday could mean the end to Judah’s days as a world champion, and given his awkward style he isn’t a fighter many are going to bring in as an opponent.
Khan problem isn’t so much with his track record, but that there are still large sections of both the press and fans unconvinced by him. And the crux of the matter is still and may forever be, his chin.
Despite weathering a late barrage of punches from Marcos Maidana that would have felled lesser fighters last year, there are still numerous critics who doubt his chin due to the first round knockout at lightweight he suffered against Breidis Prescott.
A knockout loss to Judah, regardless of how well timed the punch is or whether it would have stopped any fighter, and Khan’s reputation is firmly sealed to his critics as a flawed fighter with a glass jaw.
A slip up of any kind permanently derails Khan and Golden Boy’s plans of having him face Floyd Mayweather in the near future.
