Malignaggi: “Hatton is a limited fighter” –Boxing News

By Boxing News - 09/09/2008 - Comments

hatton45236.jpgBy Michael Lieberman: Not holding back his punches in the least, International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (25-1, 5 KOs) let loose the dogs of war with some recent comments made to Ring magazine, saying “Hatton is a limited fighter. He can’t box…I just don’t think he’s much of a fighter, or was ever much of a fighter.” Malignaggi, 27, is probably the finest light welterweight in the division at this point in his career, having beaten excellent fighters like Herman Ngoudjo, Lovemore N’dou, Edner Cherry and lost a life and death battle to Miguel Cotto.

If Malignaggi’s credentials weren’t so impeccable, I would probably dismiss at once his comments and consider them merely bluster on his part. However, he’s shown to be one of the best fighters in the game and knows boxing through and through. So if he says that Hatton is a limited fighter, I guess I have to believe in what he says. Not through with throwing darts at Hatton, Malignaggi had one final pearl of wisdom to say about Hatton, commenting in the same interview with Ring magazine, “He’s [Hatton] the John Ruiz of the junior welterweight class.”

To this, I suppose Malignaggi is remarking on Hatton’s tendency to hold and wrestle with many of his opponents on the inside. This is something he’s been doing for much of his career, but it wasn’t until his fight with Kostya Tszyu in June 2005 that Hatton used his grappling skills extensively to wear Tszyu out. Like a person that finds something that works for them and then uses it again and again repeatedly regardless of what the circumstances of the situation may dictate, Hatton seemed to morph into an inside clincher/wrestler after the Tszyu bout.

It made him awful to watch in my estimation. However, it worked for him against fighters like Carlos Maussa, Luis Collazo, Juan Urango and Jose Luis Castillo. Hatton probably should have gotten a clue after his struggle to defeat Collazo, though, because he took a minor beating in the fight and only barely scraped by with a victory.

The clinching and wrestling wasn’t effective against Collazo, who took advantage of Hatton when he would attempt to do this by hitting him with fast combinations. Finally, Floyd Mayweather Jr. showed how to keep Hatton from clinching on the inside by hitting him with short, fast combinations to the head whenever he would attempt to grab a hold of him. Malignaggi, perhaps, has seen what both Collazo and Mayweather did to Hatton and will elect to use the same strategies for himself to keep the British fighter from roughing him up on the inside.

Malignaggi is much faster than Hatton, and will probably use his fast hands to drill Hatton to the head when he attempts to hold. As Mayweather showed in his bout with Hatton, it doesn’t take a lot of power to make Hatton back off from trying to clinch. Mayweather used mainly speed rather than power at close range, hitting Hatton with lighting fast combinations at close range. Without the ability to clinch, Hatton was like a de-fanged snake, all show and no go for the most part.



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