You will read this text between two dates. On October 27, Zab Judah turned 45. Yes, already. And on November 3, 2001, he wrote out in the ring something that does not go out of memory even 21 years later. Not willingly, of course. Jude was sent on a groggy journey by Konstantin Tszyu’s fist.

Judah’s knockout has been reviewed dozens of times, and somehow, you know, it doesn’t get boring. The visual effect turned out to be so powerful, the freakish, but also creepy, however, rival Tszyu turned out to be so crushed.

To begin with, Zab Judah is Mike Tyson’s countryman. Both large, small, and very small homelands: both grew up in Brownsville, east of Brooklyn, considered, for a second, the murder capital of New York. Oddly enough, the community brought them to youtube: now both are sculpting a podcast, to which even such blocks as Dana White come. Although Judah is there, to be honest, with Mike on the vocals.

Photo: © Personal archive of Zab Judah

Zab’s fighting spirit was imbued with dad Yoel Judah. It wasn’t your typical daddy slap on the butt: Yoel is a three-time world kickboxing champion. In between, Judah Sr. managed to do more pleasant things, so Judah Jr., according to some sources, has 10 brothers and four sisters, according to others, a little less. Well, something went wrong with dad, and got involved. By the way, he raised the children alone: ​​at a certain moment, the mother lost interest in the offspring and disappeared somewhere.

But not only the father sculpted from his son a devilishly fast southpaw with baseball bats instead of hands. As an amateur, Judah won 110 victories in 115 fights, and on the streets, according to him, he fought much more often. Brownsville disciplines in this sense. Even before the fight with Tszyu Judu, they didn’t recognize him in his “native area” because of the hood and deprived him of three gold chains with Rolex watches. The next day, however, they returned it. Terrible on the face – kind inside.

In 2001, Judah and Tszyu fought for the title of absolute world champion, the highest level. And yet the three belts faded into the background then. Too much conceptual came together to think only about sports. The American was 8 years younger, his professional career did not include a single defeat (28 wins, 22 by knockout), he promised to turn the Australian Russian into Swiss cheese. And dad Yoel advised the audience during the first rounds not to blink and not to go to the toilet, so as not to miss how his bloody girl would drop the Russian.

Tszyu, within the framework of the trash talk, answered somehow sluggishly, pricking the newborn daughter of Zab, but the general ringing feeling was not born from words. A fight was planned for boxers who are among the most gifted in the history of the sport. And if Tszyu was brought into this cohort with a stretch, then Judah still has such a right. It was given to man to fight. And then I also wanted to. And it could.

But that knockout happened.

Before the fatal blow, Judah was not bad, fast and accurate. In the first round, he shook Tszyu quite seriously twice from an average distance and after the ropes. But it had consequences for Judah himself. Just as a fish that takes a breath of air while playing loses its fighting qualities, so the American grabbed the arsenic of self-confidence. He suddenly began to neglect the gloves at his chin. Three seconds before the end of the second round, Tszyu caught him on this, sticking his fist in where Judah’s head was not there a moment ago, but where she was heading after the careless trained body.

The intersection of the trajectories had an effect that could be canceled out with raised hands. And Judah’s hands were lowered, due to which, shaking his chin, he himself lowered himself.

What follows is damn interesting to revise, but much more pleasant to retell. Judah fell on his back. If he hadn’t been Judah, he would have lay down for a while, looking at the kaleidoscopes in his head. However, this is not Brooklyn’s business – to pretend to be rags. And Judah started to get up. Well, how to get up – try.

I have heard several good comparisons of this process. The famous commentator Vladimir Gendlin, for example, said: “Legs are like spaghetti.” Which was very accurate. Judah wrote out tagliatelle and fettuccine with pistons, and at the same time pretzels with pretzels. The nerve signal from the brain to the limbs got lost somewhere in the coccyx area or turned into intermittent Morse code.

In addition to the lower part of Judah, his upper half became noticeable, and then his own associations were born. Falling down, then getting up, trying at the same time to say something to the referee and to portray thoughtful control over himself, Zab began to resemble a drunken clown. And if you add on the facial expression – the legendary Chumazik from the Runet.

His figure seemed to ask: “What right do you have?!” But who “you” are and what right exactly, lurked in Zab’s dotted consciousness, eluding him as well.

All these are descriptive points that do not affect the Big Boxer Judah as a person. This is how he looked. Wildly impressed. But God forbid, none of us will be rewarded with evaluations of our behavior after a liter of vodka or a hit in the face by a tram. Namely, this is what Judah got into that evening. Unless he added his own watercolors to the sunset by hand, arranged by Tszyu.

Referee Jay Nagy, a large man with the face of a police sergeant, stopped the fight. But the show continued. At first, Judah decided to jab Nagy himself, resting his left glove on his chin. As consciousness returned, something Brooklyn reminded Zab that an object held in his hand could do more damage, and that object was the chair from his corner. The moment did not get into the broadcast, but Judah was not particularly allowed to smash the enemies with furniture, since the population density in the ring had already exceeded that in the hall. All this prompted the great boxing poet Alexander Belenky to use the phrase “enraged ferret.” Apparently, on the contrary, because before the start of the battle he called Judah a mongoose.

That night, everyone hoped that it would be beautiful, but they hardly expected such beauty. Part of the Eastern Hemisphere fell into ecstasy, and some so much that even after 21 years they keep it in their memory and reproduce it in texts. It was a good time.

Judah realized himself later. In all senses.

He became the world champion in several versions.

He hit Mayweather below the belt and then on the head, earning a disqualification along with his dad, who did about the same with Floyd’s team.

At 41, he received a cerebral hemorrhage in a fight against Cletus Seldin and ended his career.

He owned a fleet of Bentleys and Lamborghinis, lost $230,000 on a single basketball bet, and bought luxury watches. But a few years ago, he suddenly appeared as a nurse’s assistant in an institution that houses patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Before Tszyu, Judah apologized back in 2012, having arrived at one of the fights in Moscow. In general, he turned out to be a decent person who would have long been forgotten in Russia if not for that knockout in the spirit of Charlie Chaplin. Caricature-majestic and epochal.