There was nothing that was going to stop Zab Judah from taking the world welterweight championship from Cory Spinks in Spink's own backyard. Not the referee, not the judges, not the 22,000 plus fans in attendance at the Savvis Center in St. Louis who were there to cheer on their local hero. The Zab Judah that showed up tonight was focused, determined and firing on all cylinders, and it soon became clear that Spinks was running on borrowed time.

After a ridiculously and inconsiderately long ring entrance in which Spinks was accompanied by rapper Nelly, as a patient, focused Judah paced back and forth, it was clear that once again Spinks was, physically speaking, the bigger man. But unlike in their first fight where Spinks outweighed Judah by about ten pounds and was the aggressor throughout, this fight had a different dynamic altogether.

Coming into the ring at a whopping unofficial 163 lbs to Judah's 154 lbs, Spinks must have figured he could retreat and repeat, so to speak. And the first half of the fight proved a cautious affair, with Spinks content to run and eke out a boring, uninspiring decision victory. But Judah had other plans, and in round 7 he turned on the pressure.

At the end of the round, Judah seemed to score a knockdown but the referee waved it off either because he thought Spinks was pushed or because the bell signalling the end of the round had sounded. In round 8, determined to make good on his promise, Judah, frustrated by Spink's reluctance to trade, tried to turn it into a brawl. His plan worked in the sense that Spinks became anxious. Spinks engaged a little bit to please the crowd, but mostly he was in retreat mode as Judah stalked him, trying to go in for the kill.

At the start of round 9, Spinks tried to settle down and exchange with Judah, while shooting out his southpaw jab to deter Judah from coming in. Then, with less than a minute to go in the round, Judah broke out of an attempted clinch and landed a monster left hand to the right side of Spinks' face. Spinks was out on his feet, hands down by his side, as Judah flurried and dropped him with two right hands and a left. When Spinks got up and the fight resumed, Judah had him up against the ropes, defenceless, but amazingly, he was reluctant to finish him, instead he looked to the referee to stop the fight. With less than twenty seconds to go in the round, Judah realized what he had to do, and so he moved in on Spinks and closed the show.

After the fight, Judah explained that he asked the ref to stop the fight because he didn't want to kill Spinks, that Spinks was a good guy with a wife and kids, and a good boxer. As a good sportsman, Judah has come along way from the choking incident in the Kostya Tsyzu loss.

While Showtime's Steve Farhood threw out the names of Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya as potential opponents for Judah, promoter Don King (who shamelessly cited the Ali-Frazier trilogy) would probably opt for a rubber match, since it would benefit him as the promoter of both Judah and Spinks.

Finally, Zab Judah has come into his own. And the welterweight division has a new king to be reckoned with.