You gotta keep your eye on the prize

Zab Judah just found that out when he took challenger (and WBC No. 1 contender) Carlos Baldomir too lightly on the weekend. Rumours have it that Zab did no sparring/serious preparation for this bout other than with a few amateur boxers, instead looking too far ahead at his big bucks fight with Mayweather. You would have thought that given Erik Morales just made the same (losing) mistake against Zahir Raheem that Judah would have been better prepared. He wasn’t though and now he ain’t the champion anymore. Instead, Baldomir, a ‘journeyman’ from Argentina who was prepared to work for his chance is now the Ring’s welterweight champion of the world. (And of course WBC as well – he didn’t get the other two ‘cos his management didn’t put up bucks for them. The alphabet gang will have to now find a couple of more champs – hey Kostya, maybe you can get that big fight now – Zab’s gonna need something to do!)
It’s hard to believe though that in a sport this ‘professional’, in a sport where upsets do and have consistently happened, that Zab Judah and his team weren’t ready, weren’t taking this fight seriously. So much for the ‘new’ Zab, the new serious, mature fighter. Let’s see if he accepts any of the blame himself for this loss. My bet is he won’t. It’ll be his trainers, the WBC, the matchmakers, the guy at the corner shop, everyone but the man himself. And Mayweather will be kicking himself, here was a big bucks moment – a fight people would have paid to see – and it just got KO’ed. What does he do now? Does he stay at welterweight, maybe take on Sugar Shane Mosley or Margarito or does he go back down and look at Hatton or Tszyu. That’s what I love about boxing, it only takes one fight to change everything.
You gotta keep your eye on the prize. And you gotta remember that the prize is the fight you’re currently in, not the one coming up later!