02.04.04 – By Janne Romppainen – It is Easter time after just one more week, but Cory Spinks, the undisputed welterweight champion of the world has no time for painting eggs. On Saturday 10th of April he will defend his three titles against a challenger that must be considered as one of the most dangerous opponents around his weight class as the reigning WBO light welterweight titlist Zab Judah steps up to a new division to take on him. The place will be Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas and suitably to Easter’s traditions, the big winner of the weekend, whoever it is, might have to get over a big whipping to achieve his goal.
Spinks’ choice of opponent has to be appreciated. Many fighters in his position, after a career-best victory that is, would have collected some easy money with their new reputation by fighting some lesser opponents but that is not what Spinks is doing. “Super” Zab Judah, even though he is the underdog, has the ability to make things difficult enough for him.
Judah, despite being only 26 of age, has already experienced a lot in his career from which he has collected respectable statistics of 30 victories, one loss and 22 knockouts. During the years 1998-2001 he was generally recognised as one of the most talented fighters in the world at any weightclass. He was very quick from both his feet and hands, he was athletically talented, his slickness and southpaw stance made him a difficult target to hit and he carried power in his both fists. With these assets he climbed up in the rankings and defeated opponents such as Mickey Ward, Jan Bergman, from whom he collected an IBF- world title, Terron Millet and Junior Witter along the way. The unification match against the other light-welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu was supposed to be his final breakthrough to the pound-for-pound rankings. Instead, it proved to be a disaster for him. After doing well in the first round, Judah received a right hand bomb by Tszyu in the second round and was stopped. No amount of protesting of the stoppage by Judah could erase the fact that his stocks dropped dramatically. He had already earlier been down a couple of times in his career, and after this loss his chin was seriously questioned. More than that, with his behaviour after the fight he also lost plenty of his fans.
Judah’s recuperation process after the Tszyu bout has been rather slow. He has fought three times since, but compared to earlier something has been missing. He defeated notable opponents in Omar Weis and DeMarcus Corley, but his performances in those fights didn’t really impress. He had turned from a colourful aggressor to a more passive, slower-paced boxer. It is unlikely that his physical abilities had declined dramatically at this stage of his career but it rather seemed that his confidence was not there anymore. A first round knockout against a very limited Jaime Rangel in his latest fight on Spinks-Mayorga undercard proved that he still knows how to punch at least on certain level.
As for Spinks, his career remind for long as quite overlooked. Apart from the attention that his last name automatically brought him (his father is the former heavyweight champion Leon Spinks) he never created big headlines. His talent was noted among boxing fans, but he was too colourless for the big public to really get excited about him. Spinks boxes beautifully behind his right jab (he is a southpaw), he moves well, he is slick in his moves but he lacks really big power as his record 32-2, 10 knockouts demonstrates.
Spinks’ first try for the IBF-title in 2002 ended into a controversial loss after twelve rounds against Michele Piccirillo, but in the rematch in 2003 Spinks took the revenge via decision. However it was only the unification bout against Ricardo Mayorga in last December that brought his name to every boxing fans knowledge. Mayorga was just coming off from two big wins against Vernon Forrest and he was ranked high in pound-for-pound lists. Most picked him to knock Spinks out, but instead Spinks gave him a lesson of school boxing. He kept his jab on Mayorga’s face, avoided his rushes with his speed and took home a well-deserved majority decision, lifting himself at the process near or to the P4P rankings.
In a bout where two fighters of different weight classes face each other the question about their sizes always comes to play, and in this contest it plays a major part. Spinks has a big natural size advantage on his side. Especially notable is his reach, which at 78” is listed being no less than ten inches more than Judah’s, and at 5’9½ he is also three inches taller than his opponent. For a fighter such as Spinks who likes to stay outside, these assets are remarkable. This also gives Spinks a clear recipe for winning: if he can stay outside, use his reach and in the close exchanges utilize his size advantage to control Judah, the road to win should be open for him. That is also what everybody expects him to go for in this bout. In this bout he doesn’t have the usual edge from his stance, but the case is naturally the same for both men.
However, it has been seen that Spinks too can be outboxed. Even though his loss against Piccirillo was a very close one, as was his earlier loss against Antonio Diaz. On the other hand, nobody has yet really outboxed Judah. So although Spinks seems to have the advantage in here, Judah’s slickness might turn out to be difficult for him to handle also outside. Spinks is used to be faster than his opponents, but that doesn’t seem to be the case now.
Judah best chance to win, one would think, is to try to force his way to close exchanges, although the rule of thumb says that you shouldn’t go directly after a bigger foe. Judah is a good combination puncher, and even though his shots don’t carry the same kind of weight as for example Mayorga’s, he throws them more quickly and much more directly. If Spinks can’t keep his man outside, Judah could take the control by outlanding Spinks at close range. The problem for Spinks is that he isn’t really a big puncher and so he might not be able to expose Judah’s chin. However, in this case Judah’s apparently weakened confidence might be a real factor. If he wants to take over, he needs to trust his own skill and power over Spinks. He has not shown that lately, but perhaps the big fight gets him on and he is able to find his best game when needed.
So what do we have here? A big man who wants to box but who can be outboxed. A small guy who probably wants to slug despite having a problem with his chin but who also can box? On other words, we have no real answers and we won’t get them until next weeks Saturday. Personally I think Judah is the more versatile fighter of these two and thus he has greater variety of possible game plans. Even so, I lean towards Spinks in this fight. As said earlier, Judah after his bout against Tszyu has not been overly impressive. I expect it to be a slow-paced, tactical match-up that might not be overly exciting but that will include interesting strategies and skilful boxing, and I think Spinks will finally take a fairly close but unanimous decision, with his huge reach being a decisive factor.
The welterweight has been perhaps the most active division of lately and guys such as Antonio Margarito and Ricardo Mayorga are sure to take care of that it will be the case in the future too. Whoever wins the bout certainly knows that there is no time for a 40-day Lent after the Easter.
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