Zab Judah returns with ninth round knockout win over undefeated Vernon Paris – Boxing news
Zab Judah, the former undisputed world welterweight champion, is back with a boom after a five-month long break and collected an impressive ninth-round knockout win over undefeated fellow countryman Vernon Paris, the incumbent USBA light welterweight champion,
on Saturday March 24, 2012.
The ring for the epic bout was stretched at Aviator Sports Complex, Brooklyn, New York, United States and was basically an IBF light welterweight title eliminator bout. The event was promoted by Kathy Duva of Main Events and the show was televised on NBC
Sports Network.
Zab-Vernon bout headlined the Saturday night show and the heavyweight 10-round skirmish between Siarhei Liakhovich and Bryant Jennings co-headlined the whole pay-per-view. Zab, 34, was entering in his career’s 51st bout.
The southpaw Judah boasts 41 wins and 28 of them by knockout. Zab last fought Amir Khan to defend his IBF light welterweight gold and to grab hold of Khan’s WBA super world light welterweight title. The result was unexpected for the American number four
light welterweight and he lost his gold via fifth round knockout.
Since then Judah did not step his feet in the ring and this title eliminator skirmish was the first after such a long time lapse. Zab’s Saturday night opponent, Vernon, infamous as the ‘Iceman’, was on a 10-bout huge win streak and became the USBA light
welterweight champion after collecting an impressive seventh round knockout win over Tim Coleman.
Paris, 24, has been in a total 29 bouts and came out victorious in 26. He has never lost even a single bout and has just collected three no contest decisions due to several reasons.
From the very first round Zab threw powerful jabs and controlled the whole game subjugating Paris to the ring corners halting him from generating powerful jabs. In the first round Paris lost his mouthpiece and in the second round he was rattled by a huge
left hand punch.
This whole scenario continued and after the passage of ninth round’s two minutes and 27 seconds, Judah confined Paris in the ring corner and unleashed a final barrage of powerful jabs that flattened Vernon on the ring floor so much so that the referee intervened
and halted the bout awarding a technical knockout win to Zab.
After the bout, the former five-time world champion, Zab said, “My team put in a great game plan for me. I just executed. I feel like I was fighting for my home turf again. My thing was to not go in there and get wild. I wanted to dictate the pace. He was
looking to slip and throw some overhand wild shots to just try and catch me and that wasn't going to work.”
Zab will now most probably take on the winner of Lamont Peterson-Amir Khan bout at some date after May 19, 2012. Zab now has 42 wins in his account and 29 by knockout and Vernon has collected his career’s first ever defeat.
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