By Richard McManus

Up until about two months ago it was requisite for fighters planning to headline a major Pay Per View card to win their lead-up fight. These fights are usually known as tune-up or “stay busy” fights and under some circumstance are mandatory championship defenses. The networks and the promoters generally use these matches as a means of promoting the upcoming mega-fight Pay Per View.

Not only did Zab Judah’s loss to Carlos Baldomir not eliminate him from the Mayweather sweepstakes, by some perceptions and as strange as it sounds, it may have actually helped to increase the hype surrounding the fight.

This is a unique situation for the sport. Recent history shows us some examples of the opposite nearly occurring. In 2004, Oscar De La Hoya took on Felix Sturm for Sturm’s WBO Middleweight belt. Despite being out-boxed and out-toughed by Sturm, Oscar was awarded the victory by decision thus ensuring his date with Bernard Hopkins would still take place in a previously arranged mega-fight Pay Per View.

As the boxing public we swallowed the bitter pill of Oscar being handed what some felt amounted to a “gift” decision because we really wanted to see him square off with Hopkins. We suspended our disbelief and just chalked it up to growing pains on the part of De La Hoya who was fighting his first bout at the Middleweight level of 160.

De la Hoya was involved in another situation years earlier where a mega-fight was made on the understood pre-condition that the two participants emerge victorious in their lead-up fights.

In 1997, Pernell Whitaker was scheduled to take on Oscar De La Hoya in a Welterweight Pay Per View showdown that was a highly anticipated and highly desirable match-up. Not only was it Oscar’s introduction to the Welterweight division, but it was sought by Team De La Hoya as a desirable match-up based on Whitaker’s below average power. The fact that Whitaker was on the downside of a great career and the fact that Ike Quartey and Felix Trinidad were, at the time, the other two major belt holders at 147, played a role in Oscar’s decision as well.

If things were going to go as planned and Oscar was going to capture another belt in another division, it was decided by his people that Whitaker would be the one to challenge. The thinking being that the only way that Oscar could potentially look bad against Whitaker would be that if he were out-boxed which to some extent is what happened. Whitaker didn’t really have the power to rock or stop Oscar, but Trinidad and Quartey did. It is interesting to note that Whitaker did score a knockdown in the fight, and although it wasn’t a particularly clean knockdown it was still a feat which Trinidad could not accomplish two years later in his match with The Golden Boy.

But back to the fight in question.

The dates and details were being negotiated and the combatants simply were given to the task of winning their lead-up bouts, which were used as much for promotion of the upcoming Pay Per View as they were for keeping the fighters in shape and active.

Oscar took on Miguel Angel Gonzalez in what was more than just a tune-up bout or a gimme as Gonzalez was no pushover. However, Oscar’s jab and size easily won the decision and incidentally the fight was De La Hoya’s only title defense at Junior Welterweight as the retained the WBC belt with the win. Only the most egregious of Oscar-haters have ever questioned the validity of that decision being awarded to De la Hoya.

The following week Whitaker was put in there with the underrated mover and puncher Diosbelys Hurtado (20-0, 13KO’s at the time).

This fight was looked at as nothing more than a tune-up fight for the great champion Pernell Whitaker. It was thought that there was nothing that could derail Whitaker who at the time had been Welterweight champion for 4 years and had been a recognized top Pound For Pound fighter for the better part of the last ten years. Hurtado was an afterthought. People didn’t think Hurtado would be able to lay a glove on Pernell.

Maybe it was Pernell’s hubris, maybe Hurtado had never heard of Pernell Whitaker or maybe it was just that the brash upstart caught the cagey, slick vet by surprise, but Hurtado pitched a near shutout for the first ten rounds of that fight, shocking the boxing fans in attendence, the announcers and everybody watching the fight on television. Hurtado even had Whitaker down in that fight and was thoroughly out-boxing the master technician through ten rounds.

At that point it became obvious, even to Whitaker, that he needed a knockout, not only to win the fight and save his reputation but also to retain his title and to ensure that the already planned mega-fight with Oscar De La Hoya would still take place. And Whitaker was not a fighter known for his power so it was starting to look doubtful that he could even get the knockout against Hurtado who was fighting the perfect fight.

To put it simply, everybody watching the fight and everybody in the ring knew that the De La Hoya fight was off if Pernell didn’t knock out Hurtado. There has never been anything more obvious in the sport of boxing.

So what happened?

Halfway through the 11th round Whitaker landed a vicious left hand, stunning Hurtado and proceeded to pin Hurtado on the ropes as he landed one left hand after another and another and another. The urgency was palpable and everyone knew exactly what was at stake. If Whitaker lost, he would be out of the De La Hoya sweepstakes. He not only had to knock down Hurtado, he had to stop the boisterous, undefeated youngster.

Referee Arthur Mercante Jr. looked on with an impending sense of urgency as Pernell landed over ten unanswered left hands to the side of Hurtado’s head sealing the deal, knocking Hurtado senseless and nearly out of the ring and keeping intact his million-dollar date with The Golden Boy.

More than any title defense or clinic put on by Whitaker in his hall-of-fame career, that knockout of Hurtado demonstrated his championship spirit. It was a foreshadowing of things to come two years later when Whitaker fought Felix Trinidad with his speed and skills faded just enough that he was forced to trade with Tito.

It was something that he never really had to demonstrate in his boxing career, but we should have expected it from him all along. All great champions have killer hearts, even those that chose to box first as the easiest way to win the fight or as a means of self-preservation.

Now, flash forward nine years and Zab Judah, the fighter once lauded (by Max Kellerman) as the next Pernell Whitaker (Kellerman would say things like this about Judah: “He’s like Whitaker but with power, it’s scary, I can’t wait!”) is looking past the man in the ring (Carlos Baldomir) and readying himself for a big money battle with Floyd Mayweather.

The similarities are all there. The big name fighter, Mayweather is moving up in weight, as was De La Hoya (Whitaker was a big name too, but not with the general public the way Oscar was). Judah, the recognized Welterweight king has the championship belt that Mayweather seeks. The negotiations and details were almost complete on the mega-fight Pay Per View. Oh yeah, and like Pernell in the Hurtado fight, Judah was getting his head handed to him through ten rounds by a guy who had no business doing so.

The difference between Zab Judah and Pernell Whitaker was that Whitaker took care of business and Judah faded down the stretch nearly getting stopped by a man with half his skills and twice his brains. Instead of going for the knockout because that’s the thing that a champion would normally do, Judah nearly got knocked out himself as he got battered by a guy with 12 knockouts in 57 fights.

Now, I tend to agree with others that say that titles don’t make fights, fighters do. And I think that as boxing fan’s we should and generally do put less emphasis on who holds what belt, as we do on pushing for the right match-ups to be made.

However, this current situation with Zab Judah makes a mockery of the sport and of us the fans. While belts don’t make great fighters, great fighters do win against lesser competition, particularly when it is expected of them. Pernell Whitaker knew that he had to win to ensure that his date with De La Hoya would remain intact. Judah had no such urgency.

What Judah did do was lose the fight with Baldomir, shrug it off and proceed to laugh at the fans while continuing to make plans to take on Mayweather in April for the Welterweight title and $50 per view.

As Pernell Whitaker demonstrated every time he stepped into the ring, he simply respected the sport too much to handle things any other way than the way he handled them.

As far as Judah, it’s too bad he hasn’t taken his natural ability and done more with it. Many in the boxing public thought Judah had turned a corner in his career with his win over Cory Spinks. Maybe the boxing gods think he deserves another chance.

Despite my criticism of the circumstances, the Mayweather-Judah fight is very compelling and for reasons that I will make apparent at another time, I am looking forward to it.

Contact Richard at rmcm12@hotmail.com