Can someone explain Junior Witter's shot against Zab Judah?

[White Briton]

This stands out as a total oddity to me. Is there some kinda backstory behind it? Just looking through Witter's record, I've always known about the Judah fight, and speaking of it brings images to my mind of Witter missing with that haymaker in the final round and falling flat on his face. I can't quite work out what Witter had done in his short, domestic based career to merit such an opportunity? Someone tell me the history of this fight please.

Witter's record at the time: 15-0-2 (4 KO)

His opponents had a combined record of 213-305-33, all domestic/club level fighters.

He had been 8 rounds on two occasions, the majority of his fights being 6 or 4 rounders.

In preparation for Judah, Witter took a 4 round UD against Arv Mittoo, a fighter with a 7-31-3 (2 KO) record at the time.

[ghost deini]

just watched the begining quickly

the commentators say he was a replacement for Jason Rolling (not sure how you spell the name) other than that i can't tell you

[project xxx1]

i think they were both up and coming at the time and zab schooled him in a boring fight,i dont remember much of it now

[Dirk Diggler UK]

Witter came in as a late replacement at 2 weeks notice and absolutely stunk up the arena. Judah wasnt all that convincing that night but Witter's performance was so bad that it was hard for Zab to look good against. That performance contributed to Witter being shunned by America tv and never getting the fight with Hatton.

[White Briton]

Junior Witter beat a 35-1 (27 KO) Jan Piet Bergman, in his 10th pro fight over 6 rounds. Bergman's only other career loss had come 4 fights earlier, in an IBF Light Welterweight title challenge against Kostya Tszyu, in which he was stopped in 6 rounds. Before this fight he'd amassed a 32-0 (24 KO) record. After the Witter loss he fought 3 unnotable opponents, winning 2 inside the distance and one on the cards, before getting a shot at the vacant IBF Light Welterweight title against none other than Zab Judah, losing via 4th round KO, after dropping Zab in the 2nd round. Zab's first defence of the title was the Witter fight in Scotland.

[Fox McCloud]

Witter admitted that he didn't really take boxing seriously at this time, and this loss energized him to take control of his career and take it totally seriously.

The fight was dreadful. All Witter did was rapid fire pitty pat tap in clinches, while Judah barely gets his offense off because of all the clinching.

Not a fun fight to watch... that's for sure.

[Ray*]

Late replacement, wasn't ready and didn't deserve the fight, but Warren wasn't ready to put his cashcow Hatton in with a dangerous and up and comer in Judah at the time so he threw Judah to the wolves.

Witter was terrible in that fight and kept running and refuse to engage but with two weeks notice who can blame him? Am sure even with 6 months to train at that time Warren wouldn't dare throw Hatton in there.

[MACAQUEINBLACK]

Late replacement, wasn't ready and didn't deserve the fight, but Warren wasn't ready to put his cashcow Hatton in with a dangerous and up and comer in Judah at the time so he threw Judah to the wolves.

Witter was terrible in that fight and kept running and refuse to engage but with two weeks notice who can blame him? Am sure even with 6 months to train at that time Warren wouldn't dare throw Hatton in there.

Ray nails it.



Witter was still developmental and wasn't ready...he took the fight because it was thrown to him by a promoter who didn't care about his career, it's just he was too green and hadn't developed the tools to make anything of the shot.

[FloydTBE]

Witter was very poor that night