Judah and Guerrero Pick Up Regional Titles With Decision Wins

Added on Nov 08, 2010 by Brian Blake in

Boxing

Zab Judah SD12 Lucas Matthysse (WBO NABO Junior Welterweight Title), Prudential Center – Newark, New Jersey

The main event of Saturday night’s HBO televised main event at the Prudential Center could be viewed as a tale of two halves. The first half of the fight saw Brooklyn’s Zab “Super Judah pile up an early points lead while the hard hitter from Argentina came on late to make it a tough night for the former two division world champion.

Even after being in the fight game for 14 years, Judah still possesses the blinding hand and foot speed that the 33 year old is known for while the younger Matthysse struggled to keep up. Matthysse kept the pressure on but Judah’s ability to work the jab and elude any significant shots thrown by Matthysse kept things in Judah’s favor.

The persistence of Matthysse eventually proved effective as he began to catch up to Judah as his heavy hands would find their target in the later rounds. On top of landing with his fists, the bout would be littered with fouls as Matthysse’s head also proved to be a weapon.

Cut over his eye from a headbutt in the eighth, Judah was slowing down and in the tenth and was tagged by a hard combination highlighted by a strong right which sent the fomer welterweight champion down to his knees. Poised to make it to the end, Judah regained his composure and footing to beat the count.

For the duration of the bout Zab fought defensively in order to make it to the final bell. Upon tallying the scores it was announced that Judah would be the victor as two judges scored the fight in his favor with scores of 114-113 while a third judge had the same score in favor of Matthysse. With the win Judah (40-6, 27 KOs) earned not only the WBO NABO Junior Welterweight trinket but the chance to challenge South Africa’s Kaizer Mbuza for the recently vacated IBF world title. Matthysse (27-1, 25 KOs), on the other hand, goes back to the drawing board after suffering the first defeat of his career.

Robert Guerrero UD12 Vicente Escobedo (WBO Inter-Continental Lightweight Title), Prudential Center – Newark, New Jersey

Things went quite a bit smoother for Gilroy’s Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero in the evening’s co-feature bout when he took on Vicente Escobedo in their ten round clash. Guerrero started the night off strong and never looked back. Throughout the fight the bigger Guerrero was able to cleanly land the harder shots at a higher frequency than Escobedo.

On the way to his unanimous decision win Guerrero floored his opponent on two occasions, once in the third round and again in the sixth stanza. The only time the bout seemed to not go as Guerrero would have liked was after a clash of heads that opened up a cut over his right eye and also in the seventh after hearing a crack leading him to believe that he suffered a possible break in his hand.

At the end of ten rounds the judges all scored in Guerrero’s favor by margins of 100-90, 98-90 and 96-92. With the win Guerrero now eyes the winner of the upcoming title clash between WBO champion Juan Manuel Marquez and Aussie challenger Michael Katsidis.