How Can Hatton Overcome Pacquiao’s Speed Advantage?

By Jim Dower: The more I think about Ricky Hatton’s chances against Manny Pacquiao on May 2nd, I see him as having a lot of problems to try and overcome, starting with his lack of hand speed in comparison to Pacquiao’s. Hatton, 30, has the power to keep Pacquiao alert and on his toes in this bout, but the speed will be something that Hatton may find to be his undoing in the fight, because if he can’t match Pacquiao’s fast hands, he won’t stand much of a chance.

He probably doesn’t anyway. Pacquiao won’t be fighting the type of fight that Hatton normally excels at, as Pacquiao likes to stay on the outside, occasionally coming inside with lunging shots and then getting away quickly.

Hatton, for his part, prefers to stay in close against his opponents, slowly breaking them down and mugging them with his wrestling and pushing. If Hatton can lure Pacquiao into fighting this kind of fight, Hatton will have a great chance at pulling off the upset and getting the win.

The problem here, though, is that Pacquiao doesn’t fight in that kind of style, knowing that it’s too messy, and not suited for his abilities. The inside game is more of style for slower fighters with limited hand speed and foot movement, like Hatton.

This is about the only way I can see Hatton wining the fight, because he has to find some way to get Pacquiao into a grueling war at close range or else he’ll be doomed to getting drilled from the outside all night and beaten to a pulp. Perhaps if Hatton had fought Pacquiao several years ago before Manny started using his jab and right hook as much as he did now, Hatton would stand a much better chance at winning.

But unfortunately for Hatton, he’s like a fighter with a 50s style of fighting against a modern 2008 fighter with much more skills and armament in his tool box. Pacquiao is simply better than Hatton in almost every facet of the game, having absorbed every new trick that his trainer Freddie Roach has taught him in the past couple of years to perfection.

It seems as if Hatton’s bring in a European, mostly English style of fighting, into bout with a fighter with not only more natural physical skills but much better training. Hatton has helped himself somewhat by adding new trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr. as his lead trainer, and judging by Hatton’s last bout against Paulie Malignaggi, Hatton has learned some of his new skills, but not to the extent of the boxing skills that Pacquiao possesses.

Frankly, that’s going to be a huge problem for Hatton, because he can’t just run Pacquiao down like a runway dump truck like he’s grown accustomed to doing against older fighters like Kostya Tszyu, Jose Luis Castillo and weaker ones like Malignaggi.

As much as I try to see a way that Hatton can win the fight, I just don’t see any real strengths that he has in this fight. He’s too crude, limited and not advanced enough to overcome the speed and ability of Pacquiao, and mostly, I see this as a worse beating than the one that Hatton took from Mayweather.

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