A little Zab will do ya’ — but doc was right to stop fight

By Ron Kantowski

Monday, Aug. 4, 2008 | 3:45 p.m.

NOW:

With the advent of high definition and screens the size of Montana, watching a sporting event on TV is almost as good as being there.

Sometimes it's even better, at least if you want to get the real story.

(But not when you have to watch the cut man stem the flow of blood by jamming a stick with a cotton ball on top inside a fighter's nostrils. In that case, an old 13-inch black and white set from your college dorm room will suffice.)

After Zab Judah's welterweight title fight against Joshua Clottey at the Palms was stopped due to a cut over Judah's eye and Clottey was awarded a technical decision Saturday night, the TV cameras showed the eyelid slice was caused by a punch and not a clash of heads.

That's exhibit A.

Exhibit B, and more grievous, was Judah's corner claiming that Zab wanted to continue fighting despite the cut.

On TV, Dr. James Game, the ringside physician, can be heard asking Judah several times if he wants to continue and seen holding up his fingers.

"How many?" he asked the bleeding fighter.

Judah either refused to answer or answered wrong.

My gut feeling was that with Clottey coming on, frustrating him and landing the more telling blows, Judah simply didn't want to fight any more. That's why he answered wrong.

Or it could have been because the cut was worse than it appeared and Judah really couldn't see how many fingers the doctor was holding in front of him.

In either case, the decision to stop the fight was correct.

At least if you were scoring at home in front of a 65-inch TV screen.

THEN:

In the part of the Sun you can hold in your hand, I invoked the name of K.O. Bossy, which is the pseudonym Curly of the Three Stooges milked cows under, in previewing the Joshua Clottey vs. Zab Judah fight.

But Stooges or fight fans -- sometimes the same thing -- will recall that Curly's more famous fighting alias was K.O. Stradivarius, so named because whenever Larry played "Pop Goes the Weasel" on the violin, Curly/Stradivarius would go crazy and knock out his opponent.

Clottey vs. Judah wasn't a bad fight, but there were times during the middle rounds when I wished somebody would jump onto the ring apron and play "Pop Goes the Weasel" on a violin.

Or even an iPod.