By Scott Gilfoid: With two wins over less than impressive opponents in his last two fights, Ricky Hatton (45-1, 32 KOs) will once again step into the fire, this time against Manny Pacquiao (48-3-2, 36 KOs) on May 2nd in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hatton, 30, is taking a huge risk in fighting Pacquiao, who looked unbeatable recently in dismantling Oscar De La Hoya earlier in the month. The fight, which many felt would be a competitive one, saw De La Hoya take a terrible beating, bad enough so that Oscar had to quit on his stool after the 8th round.
Hatton, despite his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr., a 10th round stoppage in 2007, and a close call against Juan Lazcano after being hurt by him, Hatton remains a popular fighter. However, the question remains, will Hatton continue to be popular if he’s beaten as badly as De La Hoya and David Diaz were against Pacquiao?
Right now, Hatton couldn’t have chosen a worse time to fight Pacquiao, because at 30, Pacquiao is fighting at his best, and looking downright invincible. Hatton, heavy straight ahead, one-paced pressure fighter, would seem to be tailor made for Pacquiao, who for his part, can do it all – box, slug and move.
Pacquiao, like Mayweather, won’t stand directly in front of Hatton and allow him to wrestle, maul and land his shots at close range like the more limited fighters that Hatton has faced. Pacquiao will likely fight the same way he did against De La Hoya, moving in and out, landing blinding fast combinations and circling the ring on Hatton.
This is almost without a doubt going to be a fight where Hatton takes terrific punishment, and gets battered without stop. Certainly, Hatton has the power to take Pacquiao out if Manny chooses to stand directly in front of him and trade shots at close range, but that’s not how Pacquiao fights.
He’ll move often, drilling the much slower Hatton with fast combinations before he has time enough to respond to the punches. I think, if it gets bad enough, we may see Hatton quit on his stool in the same manner that De La Hoya did.
When he sees that he has no chance in the fight, and that he’s only taking needless punishment, Hatton may prefer to save himself for another day. However, a bad loss to Pacquiao will all but destroy any chances for Hatton to take on Mayweather, although De La Hoya will still probably be an option for him.
The public would probably have little interest in seeing him fight anyone, however, until Hatton redeems himself with some good wins over top talent like Junior Witter or Timothy Bradley, but that’s not likely something that Hatton will do.
He’ll probably go from a knockout loss to Pacquiao straight into another mega fight against De La Hoya, but it will be obviously a much less popular fight than it would otherwise be if Hatton could somehow beat Pacquiao. But, I don’t give Hatton much if any chance at beating Pacquiao, and have to be logical about this. Hatton will take his beating, just like De La Hoya, and the only hope is that Hatton can at least make it close enough so as not to suffer in losing.
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