Did The Referee Save Hatton From A Knockout In The 10th?

By Eric Thomas: No matter how many times that I watch Ricky Hatton’s fight with Juan Lazcano, I can’t help thinking that Hatton was saved by referee Howard John Foster in the 10th round after Hatton was nailed with another check-hook by Juan Lazcano, catching Hatton as he was jumping in with a leaping left hook, hurting him and causing him to stagger slightly. Immediately after the punch landed, Hatton staggered, then began grabbing a hold of Lazcano disparately. Lazcano tagged Hatton with another big left hook, which Hatton took flush in the face. For the next 20 seconds, Hatton clinched continuously, while Lazcano pumped in short combinations to the head of Hatton.

After landing a couple of shots to Hatton’s back, which was caused because Hatton was draped all over Lazcano, the fight was temporarily stopped by the referee as he gave Lazcano a warning for pushing Hatton’s head down. It was a strange warning, in that Lazcano wasn’t pushing Hatton’s head down at all, for it was Hatton who was sliding down the body of Lazcano while trying to clinch him in a disparate manner. The warning by the referee appeared to come just in time, because Hatton was clearly out on his feet and needing to buy time to clear his head.

This wasted another 20 seconds, and was enough for him to recover from the huge left hand that he took. It was sad to see Hatton reduced to this, because he was expected to win the fight with ease, but I had my doubts about his chin after getting stopped in his last fight. It seemed a little too soon for him to come back from the knockout, not enough time for his brain to recover from his last knockout. As it turned out, I was right because Hatton was hurt badly not just once, but twice in the fight. In the 8th, he got tagged with another check-hook from Lazcano, who nailed Hatton in a similar circumstance where he was wildly attempting to throw another leaping left hook and was tagged by Lazcano as he was falling away to the side.

Again, Hatton took a lot of punishment in the round and looked badly shaken. In this situation, Hatton was able to recover without outside assistance by the referee, but he was very fortunate to get through the round in once piece, all the same. As bad as the 8th round was for Hatton, it was nothing like the 10th in which he was in really bad shape. I still wonder what would have happened if the referee hadn’t stepped in twice for Hatton. Would Hatton have been able to make it out of the round without the help from the referee. After watching the fight several times, I’ve come to the conclusion that he wouldn’t have been able to.

He looked to be on the verge of going down when the referee stepped in and stopped the fight to give Lazcano what looked to be an unnecessary warning. The warning, as I mentioned, was an extremely lengthy, taking more time than any that I’ve seen before. It seemed like really bad timing for that to occur, just when Hatton was in the middle of getting battered by Lazcano. The referee had to have seen the predicament that Hatton was in, which makes it all the stranger that he would choose to stop the action twice.

I think that without this stoppage, Hatton wouldn’t have made it out of the 10th round. It’s sad and unfortunate that this happened, because Lazcano lost what could have been a huge win for him, one that would have set him up likely for a big money rematch with Hatton. (Of course, Hatton would want to avenge his defeat almost immediately).