After looking rather bleak throughout Memorial Day weekend, on Tuesday afternoon, the junior welterweight unification tilt between IBF beltholder Zab Judah and WBA titlist Amir Khan was consummated for July 23^rd at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas in a fight that will be televised by HBO.

And it was done through old-fashioned common sense and compromise.

"Let’s just put it this way; Khan and Golden Boy gave a little bit and we gave a little bit," said the leader of Main Events, Kathy Duva, who reps Judah, "and that’s what got it done. In the end, Zab and Main Events- all the team- agreed that sometimes you gotta stop worrying about a percentage, point here or there- or who gets their way and just make the fight happen. Because really, the real upside for Zab is going to be after he wins this fight. You gotta be in the fight to win it, so there’s going to be a fight."

Golden Boy gave into a 55-45 revenue split and Main Events agreed to have the fight in “Sin City” and not Atlantic City.

Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, told Maxboxing, "I mean, it wasn’t easy but I’m glad at the end it got done because it’s a title unification bout. I think it’s a big summer fight and Amir and us, we’re excited and now the fight fans are excited to see this fight because there’s a lot of interesting storylines."

While this was a back-up plan to Khan-Tim Bradley, in all honestly, this might be the more crowd-pleasing match-up and Judah, because of his history, brings a bigger profile than the “Desert Storm.”

"This turned into a situation where I know HBO put tremendous pressure on the Khan camp to take this fight and in the end, frankly, it was the best fight out there that they could get with what was left," said Duva. "I personally believe it’s been the best fight all along that they could get but they had other plans and all of those plans fell out over things we had no control over and all of a sudden, there it is. At some point, you just say, ’Alright, let’s just do this. Let’s just get this thing done.’"

I can be reached at k9kim@yahoo.com and I tweet at www.Twitter.com/stevemaxboxing. We also have a Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/MaxBoxing.

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