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Since its conception, this fight hinged on the premise that Zab Judah was not himself while fighting Carlos Baldomir, and therefore still warranted a chance against the world’s pound-for-pound champion. One is tempted to counter that Judah was himself to a tee against Baldomir: an arrogant fighter too in love with himself and the trappings of a champion but ill-prepared to fight as one.
The parade of excuses presented by Judah, Don King and even Floyd Mayweather himself contained a threadbare logic too flimsy to hold even in boxing. “Sworn Enemies” is a bemusing tagline for a fight that Judah received as a gift from Mayweather, who also assumed the bulk of the fight’s promotional duties. With enemies like that, who needs friends?
Of course, there is an ulterior motive on Mayweather’s part that supersedes the relevance of Judah’s loss to Baldomir, the order and consequence of championship rankings and the respectability of the sport at large: money. The fight appeals not exclusively, but mostly to the significant percentage of African-American fight fans besotted with the notion of a clash between the two fighters that most epitomize the glitz-laden hip-hop culture in boxing. [details]
The parade of excuses presented by Judah, Don King and even Floyd Mayweather himself contained a threadbare logic too flimsy to hold even in boxing. “Sworn Enemies” is a bemusing tagline for a fight that Judah received as a gift from Mayweather, who also assumed the bulk of the fight’s promotional duties. With enemies like that, who needs friends?
Of course, there is an ulterior motive on Mayweather’s part that supersedes the relevance of Judah’s loss to Baldomir, the order and consequence of championship rankings and the respectability of the sport at large: money. The fight appeals not exclusively, but mostly to the significant percentage of African-American fight fans besotted with the notion of a clash between the two fighters that most epitomize the glitz-laden hip-hop culture in boxing. [details]
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