A "Super" Return for Zab Judah

On July 16, Zab "Super" Judah (39-6) made his return to the ring against Jose Armando Santa Cruz (28-5). It was Judah's first fight since he defeated Ubaldo Hernandez eight months prior.

Judah was on a three fight win streak since dropping a technical decision to Joshua Clottey in the Summer of 2008.

Prior to that loss Judah was in a negative time of his career. He was coming up from the Light Welterweight limit to earn of a great knock out over Cory Spinks to become the Undisputed Welterweight champion, only to lose his title to Carlos Baldomir in his second defense. His next fight was a unanimous decision loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr., who had trouble with Judah throughout the first part of their fight. Following his fight with Mayweather, after a fight ruled a no contest, Zab suffered a TKO loss to, a then undefeated, Miguel Cotto.

Now, at the age of 32, Zab "Super" Judah is making a comeback to the Light Welterweight division. He began this return with a dominating knock out win in the third round against Santa Cruz. Judah looked very comfortable in the ring, using his tremendous boxing skills to keep control of the fight using his jab masterfully and slipping incoming punches.

After two and half rounds of jabbing and moving from Judah, he avoided a wild right hook from Santa Cruz and countered with a lightning quick left uppercut that put his opponent face first onto the canvas.

Santa Cruz rose to beat the count and continue, however "Super" Judah lived up to his name, immediately following up with a flurry of punches with Santa Cruz's back against the ropes that caused the referee to call the fight two minutes and 31 seconds into round three.

And with that, Zab "Super" Judah has extended his win streak to four straight and made his comeback to the Jr. Welterweight division. However the question remains,

Does he have what it takes to fight the likes of Devon Alexander, Timothy Bradley, and the other top ranked fighters in, arguably, the deepest division in the sport?

With his performance Friday night, Judah definitely looks to be a legitimate threat to any of the major players in the 140 lb. weight class, but only time and his upcoming fights will show what the man known as "Super" has left.