Judah-Clottey: A New York street fight in a Las Vegas ring

By Norm Frauenheim

Nearly everything about Zab Judah is fleeting. His hands, feet and reputation come and go, return and retreat, at a rate that makes any portrayal of him an uncertain task. Like him one moment. Dislike him the next
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Who is he? Impossible to say. The guess is that he isn’t too sure, either. Every time he sees himself in the mirror, he must wonder – or perhaps hope – that he is looking back at the finished product.

It’s a little late in the game to repair a fractured identity, which doesn’t heal as readily as a busted nose. If nothing else, Judah seems to know at least that much.

Against Joshua Clottey Saturday night in an HBO-televised welterweight bout at The Palm in Las Vegas, Judah is entering the final rounds of a career that began with such blinding promise.

“You worry about it,’’ said Judah, who will fight Clottey for the International Boxing Federation title that Antonio Margarito relinquished before his brilliant victory over Miguel Cotto last Saturday. “I’m 30 now. I know there aren’t too many more opportunities.’’

Judah hopes to create a very big one against Clottey. But he needs more than a victory. Judah needs sustained brilliance – an ability to finish the way he starts. Without it, promoter Bob Arum might turn to Sugar Shane Mosley as the next opponent for Margarito.

Of course, Mosley has to beat Ricardo Mayorga on Sept. 27. But if he can’t beat Mayorga, then Mosley should get into the buffet line behind Fernando Vargas, who was a heavyweight and hard to recognize when he reached over to congratulate Margarito after his 11th-round stoppage of Cotto. There have been several buffets since Vargas lost to Mayorga in 2007.

Anyway, Mosley still has the name and hence the drawing power to generate more revenue than Judah, whose inconsistency leaves only ambivalence about investing in a ticket for one of his fights. Truth is, Judah was probably at his most likable in an 11th-round TKO loss in June, 2007 to the now-vulnerable Cotto.

Since then, a May 31 bout with Mosley was canceled amid reports, and some controversy, about a cut on Judah’s right forearm. It required a reported 50 stitches. The wound, Judah said, was suffered when he fell through a shower door. The arm, Judah said about a week ago, is completely healed.

“It’s 100 percent,’’ he said “I think it’s 190 percent.’’ In other words, it’s stronger than his fragile reputation.

Fair or not, Judah is perilously close to internet infamy, if not ridicule, for stumbling across the ring like an infant trying to learn how to walk on an unsteady trampoline after a loss to Kostya Tszyu in 2001.

Judah, who was separated from his senses by a Tszyu right in the second round, attacked referee Jay Nady for what he thought was a premature stoppage. He threw a stool at Nady. Like nearly everything else Judah threw in the second round, it missed.

For Judah, there is deep-seated frustration, simply because he looked like a better fighter than Tszyu in the first round. But those two rounds quickly define the good and the bad in the mercurial Judah.

“I feel like I’ve cheated myself a lot,’’ Judah said.

A whole lot.

But there it was again. As quickly as Judah won over reporters a week ago with an honest self-appraisal, he lost them with questions that are as nagging as they are familiar. Judah said he had sparred often with Clottey at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn.

No way, Clottey said.

“I’ve never sparred with him, never,’’ said Clottey, who lost to Margarito after breaking a hand in the seventh round.

Instead, Clottey said that Judah offered him money to be a sparring partner.

“But I told him I didn’t want money, that I wanted to fight him,’’ said Clottey, who said Judah once shoved his trainer at Gleason’s. “I just really want to fight this guy. He tried to fight me in the street. I told him to quit harassing me and I told him let’s fight for real.’’

Clottey said that Judah did spar with his brother Emanuel, who told him that Judah was “no good” after five rounds.

“Maybe that’s why he can say he sparred with a Clottey,’’ Joshua said.

“But it wasn’t me. It was my brother.’’

Maybe, it was just another case of mistaken identity in an elusive, erratic career that just makes Judah a hard guy to figure.