British export Amir Khan added a second world title belt in impressive fashion Saturday night, dominating Zab Judah before scoring a fifth-round stoppage in their 140-pound championship unification fight at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
The win earned the 24-year-old the IBF junior welterweight crown in addition to his own WBA super lightweight laurels, which he was defending for the fifth time since defeating Andriy Kotelnyk two years and five days ago in Manchester, England.
He’s now 26-1 with 18 knockouts.
“We knew Zab Judah would be tricky and we needed to be one step ahead of him,” Khan said. “My plan was to step to his left to take his big shots away from him. All my shots were hitting him and that’s when I started to put the pressure on. It feels like I haven’t even been in a fight.”
The end came at 2:47 of the fifth round, when, after Khan connected on a straight right to the head, he followed up with a right uppercut that landed squarely on the beltline of a bent-over Judah, who immediately went to his knees and took the full 10-count from referee Vic Drakulich.
Judah claimed the shot was low and insisted he’d believed Drakulich was giving him an eight-count to recover from the punch before waving the fighters back together. Instead, he lost for just the second time in 19 career bouts at 140 pounds and fell to 11-7 in 18 career title fights.
Now 33, Judah debuted in 1996, when Khan was 9 years old.
“I started to get on track late in the fight,” Judah said. “He started out pretty fast and he had a weird jab, but I was starting to land my own jab in the later rounds. The fans around the world can look and see the low blow. I thought (Drakulich) was giving me time to get myself together.
“When he said over, I was like ‘What?'”
Khan established himself as the aggressor from the first bell, controlling the initial two-thirds of the opening round with a solid left jab and mixing in follow-up rights in the late going.
Judah landed a sweeping right hook that preceded a Khan butt that left Judah wincing after contact with his right eye. More of the same followed in the second, with Khan’s jab driving his offense into the final 30 seconds, when he landed a pair of scoring right hands.
Judah opened the third with a series of southpaw jabs after a between-rounds tongue-lashing from trainer Pernell Whitaker, but Khan landed a jab, right, left combination with 25 seconds left and subsequently drove Judah to the ropes with another right hand and a strong counter jab before the bell.
A trickle of blood appeared from Judah’s nose in the fourth and the younger man’s work rate continued, including a scoring three-punch combination with 45 seconds remaining and yet another straight right along the ropes 15 seconds later.
Sports Network had Khan ahead, 40-36, at the time of the stoppage.
“I really think if we’d have gone another round,” Khan said, “I’d have knocked Zab Judah out.”
