Hatton-Mayweather: Fighting on The Back Foot

By David Lahr: At the recent press conference in Manchester with Ricky Hatton (43-0, 31 KOs) and Floyd Mayweather Jr. (38-0, 24 KOs), Hatton commented that Mayweather “fights like a woman” and “fights on the back foot,” meaning that Mayweather tends to fight in a mostly a safety first defensive posture to avoid taking shots from his opponents. However, what Hatton fails to realize in saying this, though, is that all of the former great boxers of the past, for example, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammed Ali, Ezzard Charles and Jack Johnson, as well as boxing stars of the present, like Roy Jones Jr., and Chris Byrd, use the same style of fighting with most of their weight on their back foot.

There’s no shame in having a sound defense, as the nature of boxing is to hit and avoid being hit in return. Somehow, Hatton has got it mixed up in his head about fighting, perhaps thinking it’s a test of manhood to take unecessary shots to the head in order to gain the respond of the fans. Who knows? That may be a requirement in England, but if it is, it’s something that they need to get away from because the boxer is the one that has to live with the results of being punches continuously in the head, not the fans.