Khan manhandles Judah in five rounds

Rafael's remark: Tremendous performance from England's Khan. And as good as Khan looked, that is how bad Judah looked in what was as complete a domination as exists. Khan was expecting (and hoping) to fight two-belt titlist Timothy Bradley, but he turned down a 50-50 deal and a career-high payday of about $1.8 million in a move that puts him at the head of the class of the Winky Wright School of Boxing Business. So what was Khan supposed to do? He can't make somebody fight him. But he wants to fight the best possible opponents around, and he's not just saying it. He's been doing it. So the next best available opponent was Judah, the veteran who had claimed a vacant belt in March by knocking out South Africa's Kaizer Mabuza. Unlike Bradley, Judah was willing to take the big risk against Khan.

So Judah, 33, came into the fight saying all the right things, talking up his union with trainer (and all-time great fighter) Pernell Whitaker and looking in fantastic condition. But when the bell rang, Judah had absolutely nothing to offer. The outside looked good, but there are a lot of miles on the inside. Khan was taller, quicker, a heavier puncher and, at 24, nine years younger. It added up to a rout of the highest degree in perhaps the best performance of Khan's burgeoning career. This kid has the potential to be among the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world. In making his fifth title defense (and third in the United States), Khan also unified two of the 140-pound belts. He has two and Bradley has two. Whether Bradley ever fights him remains to be seen. After seeing how Khan manhandled Judah, Bradley might stay away from him forever.

With most of the announced crowd of 7,279 at Mandalay Bay firmly behind Khan, he put on a show. Judah, a Brooklyn, N.Y., native who has lived in Las Vegas for the past several years, was rattled by an accidental head butt in the first round and was never able to get rolling. But Khan was. He showed pretty much everything you want to see and then ended the fight with one punch. After landing a right hand to Judah's face -- which he found a home for often -- he landed another right hand. This one was directly on Judah's beltline with a bit of an uppercut motion. Judah fell to his knees and put his head on the canvas as referee Vic Drakulich counted the knockdown. Judah, who was being utterly outgunned before the punch, showed zero inclination to continue. He never even acknowledged that Drakulich was counting. Frankly, he seemed to be looking for a way out of the fight because he was being battered before the knockdown. Judah claimed it was a low blow and appeared to be trying to buy a disqualification or a point deduction. Drakulich was having none of that and counted him out at 2 minutes, 47 seconds. The replays clearly show that the punch was, at worst, borderline. Around ringside the universal opinion was the same as Drakulich's -- that it was right on the waistband and was clearly a legal punch.

Now Judah, who suffered only his second career loss at junior welterweight (the other was a decade ago to Kostya Tszyu, who went into the International Boxing Hall of Fame last month), is a three-time former 140-pound titlist (and the former undisputed welterweight champion). He said he plans to continue fighting and remain at junior welterweight. It could be a tough climb back to another shot because Judah's nine lives are just about up.

Khan, meanwhile, is on his way to bigger fights. He will probably take one more fight at junior welterweight. According to Golden Boy promoter Richard Schaefer that will come in December as part of Khan's HBO contract. After that, trainer Freddie Roach's charge plans to move up to welterweight, where he would like a piece of Floyd Mayweather Jr. (although not his friend and training and sparring partner, pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao). Khan, the 2007 ESPN.com prospect of the year, has big aspirations and the massive talent to go with them.

Rafael's remark: Quillin has long been a quality prospect, but he has had a multitude of injuries that have hampered his career. From September 2008 through the end of 2010 he fought only three times. Now that he is healthy and has a stable promotional situation with Golden Boy, he is getting on a roll with his third fight of the year.

Quillin, 28, of Brooklyn, N.Y., scored his biggest career win in April, when he blew out former "Contender" star and super middleweight title challenger Jesse Brinkley in the third round. He was supposed to take another step up in competition against Tarvis Simms, but Simms suffered a fractured rib preparing for the fight and LeHoullier, 33, of Dover, N.H., stepped in on short notice. Other than heart, however, LeHoullier had nothing to offer. Quillin bashed him around the ring almost at will for the entirety of the mismatch. Finally, with LeHoullier taking a ferocious beating and his face swelling in the fifth round, his corner thankfully threw in the towel, and referee Robert Byrd called it off at 1 minute, 38 seconds.

LeHoullier lost his sixth fight in a row. Quillin is steaming toward a significant fight. Golden Boy plans to put him on Sept. 17 on the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Victor Ortiz HBO PPV undercard.

Rafael's remark: Russell looks like a potential future star. The 23-year-old from Capitol Heights, Md., was a 2008 U.S. Olympian and had a superstar amateur career. He seems destined for stardom in the pros, as well. His hand speed is just absurd. He might have the fastest hands in all of boxing. He has technique, seems like he has good power in both hands, good balance, good defense and is as committed to having a good body as any young fighter you'll ever see. It would not be a surprise at all to see him win a title in the next year to 16 months and become one of the best featherweights in the world. He has that much potential. His fight was supposed to open the HBO telecast, but the network and promoter Golden Boy and adviser Al Haymon could not agree on an opponent. So HBO instead showed highlights of Russell taking apart Chicago's Estrada, who was simply helpless to do anything against Russell's blazing speed and torrent of punches from all angles.

Estrada showed a good chin and plenty of heart because he took a ton of shots. In the seventh round, one of the shots forced Estrada to touch his glove to the canvas for a knockdown. Russell won every second of the fight and is as significant a prospect as there is in boxing. There is some talk that he could make his HBO debut Sept. 3 on the undercard of Jan Zaveck's welterweight title defense against Andre Berto, who is also with Haymon, and Haymon has a way of making HBO do what he wants.

Rafael's remark: Kirkland's comeback continued with this quick knockout of Hloros. If you follow boxing, you probably know Kirkland's story. He was a fast-rising junior middleweight contender on the verge of a title shot when he got busted for gun possession, which, because he was already a convicted felon, was quite serious. He wound up in prison for 18 months. When he returned to the ring after a two-year layoff, Kirkland, 27, left his hometown of Austin, Texas, and split with longtime trainer Ann Wolfe. He relocated to Las Vegas and began training with the highly respected Kenny Adams.

Kirkland returned in March and scored two wins in the span of 13 days. Then he took on unheralded Nobuhiro Ishida in what was supposed to be a showcase fight on the Marcos Maidana-Erik Morales HBO PPV undercard in April. Ishida pulled off the shocker, dropping Kirkland three times in the first round for the stunning upset to kill what would have been a likely shot in the fall at middleweight champion Sergio Martinez. After the loss, Kirkland split with Adams, returned to Austin and buried the hatchet with Wolfe. He returned to the ring June 24 and blew out punching bag Dennis Sharpe in one round. And now it was Hloros' turn. Kirkland was all over him from the opening bell. He dropped Hloros, 32, of Mt. Clemens, Mich., twice in the first round, but also took a couple of hard shots and reacted well to them. Hloros was still shaky from the knockdowns as the second round began and when Kirkland was teeing off on him referee Russell Mora stepped in to stop the bout 25 seconds into the round. We still don't know how Kirkland is going to react when he faces a better grade of opponent, but he makes tremendously fun fights.

Rafael's remark: In April, Mexico's Salido pulled off a stunning upset when he went to Puerto Rico and dethroned titleholder Juan Manuel Lopez with an eight-round knockout to win his second featherweight title. Top Rank, their promoter, is planning to make a rematch, but Salido understandably wanted a chance to defend the title, make a little money and do it at home. So Salido, 30, returned to his hometown of Ciudad Obregon, where the fans went wild for him as he battered Japan's Yamaguchi, 31, with Lopez observing from ringside.

Although Yamaguchi displayed a really funky, awkward style as he bounced up and down and ducked very low, he was no match for Salido, who marched toward him and pounded him throughout the "Top Rank Live" main event. Salido was warned by referee Roberto Ramirez Jr. for hitting Yamaguchi with a pair of low blows in the second round, but it did not discourage him working the body, which he did well throughout the bout. In the third round, Salido was hammering Yamaguchi, who went down on the end of a solid right hand. Yamaguchi's night got worse in the sixth round when an accidental head butt opened a nasty cut over his left eye. At this point, he did not seem to have a prayer of winning, but the fight was allowed to continue and Salido continued to punish him. Round after round, Yamaguchi showed a big heart by absorbing a beatdown. Finally, in the 11th round and with Yamaguchi having no answers for Salido, Ramirez stepped in to stop it at 2 minutes, 50 seconds. This was about as thorough a shellacking as you'll see, albeit an entertaining one to watch with a crowd that loved every minute of it.

With this hometown defense out of the way for Salido, look for Top Rank's efforts to finalize a rematch with Lopez for late in the year to get more intense. Salido was originally scheduled to meet American Mike Oliver, but Oliver suffered a sternum injury during a six-round decision win in a June 25 tuneup fight.

Rafael's remark: One sure sign of a good fight? When the referee's shirt is covered in blood when it's over. Well, referee Victor Loughlin's shirt was indeed covered with blood when this one was over and it was, in fact, an excellent heavyweight fight between two of England's top big men, who had trash talked each other throughout the promotion and then lived up to it with an entertaining, albeit somewhat one-sided, fight, which was available in the United States on Integrated Sports PPV and brought British terrestrial network Channel 5 into boxing for the first time.

Fury, 23 and a giant at 6-foot-9, 255 pounds, took his biggest test and passed impressively. Although he was rocked with a hard left hook in the thrilling second round, Fury showed heart and determination to survive the rocky moments and go on for a clear-cut victory that netted him the vacant Commonwealth title and Chisora's British title.

Before the fight, world champion Wladimir Klitschko, fresh off his July 2 rout of David Haye, another Brit, said he might be interested in making his next defense against the Fury-Chisora winner. Maybe Fury will get the opportunity, but he is clearly not ready for that. He is a young fighter possibly with a good future. It would be a shame to watch him get wrecked by Klitschko so early in his career. But this was still a very good victory for Fury and an exciting fight that certainly would make folks want to see more of him.

For Chisora, 27, it was a big disappointment. The 6-1 fighter came in seemingly not in the best condition at a career-heavy 261 pounds (17 more than his previous fight 10 months ago). He had his best chance for the knockout in that exciting second round, but Fury got the better of him for most of the rest of the fight. Chisora was bleeding heavily from his mouth in the late rounds, but was still going for it when he knew he needed a knockout. It's been a bit of a roller coaster for Chisora over the past several months. Twice, late last year and then in the spring, he was supposed to challenge Klitschko for the title. Both times the fight was called off because of a Klitschko injury and his opportunity to unify belts with Haye. So Chisora went from a world title shot to this loss at a much lower level in the span of just a few months.

Rafael's remark: The "Friday Night Fights" main event was a mismatch on paper and indeed one inside the ring as Dirrell, 26, the younger brother of Super Six World Boxing Classic participant Andre Dirrell, blew out the utterly overmatched Engel. Dirrell was supposed to face former titlist Alejandro Berrio, but he withdrew and Engel, 31, of St. Louis, took the fight on short notice. When he arrived at the fight site, he was overweight and had no prayer of making the 170-pound contract weight. He spent the day before the fight in a sauna trying to cut weight and eventually got down to 174. He paid Dirrell $1,250 out of his purse and the fight went on. And it was over pretty quickly.

Dirrell dominated and in the second round he dropped Engel with a clean right hand. Moments later, Dirrell floored Engel again with a clean left hand to the groin. Referee Lou Moret missed the foul and ruled a knockdown and counted Engel out at 1 minute, 44 seconds. Dirrell got the victory on a foul, but did it matter? This fight was going to end in a knockout regardless. Engel had no shot to win whether he got hit in the foot, the groin or the head. At least it ended quickly. Engel has been knocked out in three of his past four fights. Dirrell, who overcame a bout with cancer, scored his eighth consecutive knockout, but has never faced a serious opponent.

Rafael's remark: Martin, 25, of Chula Vista, Calif., has developed a bit of a fan following in San Diego, where he was born, as he has been fighting regularly on Telefutura's "Solo Boxeo Tecate." He headlined another of the shows on the series, but not in his hometown. The result was no different, however. In a bit of a slow-paced fight Martin easily outboxed Mexico's Silveira, 25, to win the landslide decision. Martin has looked pretty good in recent fights, including decision wins against previously undefeated prospect Chris Avalos last August and Charles Huerta in May. Martin just keeps rolling along. Maybe, just maybe, he can do the same thing when facing a top-10 junior featherweight.