By Matt Rohr: There’s a saying that suggests that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, which perhaps more often than not is true. However, in the case of Ricky Hatton, his new trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr. is sure hoping he’s one of the few dogs that can learn a few new tricks with the time that he has left in boxing. In a recent interview with Newsoftheworld, Mayweather Sr. expressed that things would have been far different if he had been the trainer for Hatton instead of Billy Graham for Ricky’s fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in December 2007, a fight which sadly resulted in a 10th round TKO loss for Hatton.

In the interview, Mayweather Sr. said, “If I had trained Ricky to fight my son you would have seen a completely different fight.” Apparently, Mayweather Sr. hasn’t been too impressed with the training that Graham gave to Hatton, in particular his use of the heavy body bag that Graham would wear and let Hatton punch him for prolonged periods without stop. This was something that Mayweather Sr. didn’t appear to see as any benefit for Hatton, commenting “What can you learn from hitting a pillow? That is what you punch when you’re in a bad mood, not what you hit to prepare for the best fighters.”

In this, Mayweather Sr. looks to be echoing the thoughts of many boxing experts who never quite understood the logic of Hatton pounding away on a person holding a huge body bag for prolonged periods of time. Because not only was it hard on the person holding the bag, causing injures to their hands and elbows like some of the ones that Graham eventually suffered from, it also got Hatton into the routine of punching at a lifeless object without focusing on having to defend himself from punches flying back at him.

In real fights, it’s never as easy as punching an object, because fighters fire back and don’t just take it. Although this is just speculation on my part, I think it may have led to some of Hatton’s bad habits of rushing in punching range with the sole purpose of throwing big shots without worrying about the consequences of his often wild attacks. Against the softer, less skilled opponents that Hatton fought earlier in his career, he did well with his attack style of fighting but as you we can now see, he’s doing much less well now that he’s forced to fight better fighters that can punch back at him.

Mayweather Sr. likewise stated that he can’t wait to start training Hatton, so that he can begin to show him how much better Hatton will be when he’s trained by a “good trainer.” This will be interesting to see. Hatton is 29 years-old now, and the things that were taught to him by his former trainer have by now been fully ingrained in him, making him what he is today. It seems somewhat illogical to try and deviate from what he already is, considering that it’s brought Hatton fame and success.

I don’t really know whether teaching Hatton to try and use his jab more often, to duck punches or use the shoulder roll, and things like that, is going to be something that will make him a better overall fighter. It might do the exact opposite, making him a much worse fighter instead of a better one. In a lot of cases when you take a fighter, especially one whose main success has been there aggression, and try to turn them into a more finesse oriented, you end up with a stultified fighter instead of a better one.

Right now, Hatton is pretty excited with Mayweather Sr., and likely sees things as getting better for him in the future. However, he could be in for a rude awakening if he slows his offensive attacks down and becomes a more outside fighter. Due to his height and lack of reach, I doubt that he will ever be successful using the kind of approach that Mayweather Sr. teaches.