By William Mackay: As I play this fight through my mind wondering how it’s going to play out, I just can’t see Ricky Hatton (45-1, 32 KOs) fighting any other way than he’s always done for most of his career, and against a fighter as good as Manny Pacquiao (48-3-2, 36 KOs), that’s just not going to it done. May 2nd is quite a long time, but even if the fight were to take place in a year, I see Hatton as still fighting with the same, face forward, wrestle and hit, style that he’s done for his entire career.
If his new trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr. has had any effect on changing Ricky’s style, I can’t see it. Aside from a few jabs against Paulie Malignaggi, a harmless opponent with little power, Hatton fought pretty much as he always does, mostly slugging it out. Against Pacquiao, who’s much faster in terms of hand and foot speed, Hatton is going to have some serious problems almost immediately in that fight.
Unlike his bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr. where Hatton did a fair job in the first half of the fight, I see him having immediate problems against Pacquiao. The problem is that Hatton’s just too slow to match Pacquiao’s blazing hand speed and will find himself getting hit repeatedly in the face early on.
I’m sure that his trainer, Mayweather Sr., will have a lot of back up strategies, mostly advising Hatton to try and stay on the outside, to work his jab and use lateral movement against Pacquiao. Sorry, but that won’t work. Pacquiao moves to quickly with feet and can get within punching distance in a fraction of a second to land his hard, spearing jab and straight left.
What then will Hatton do? My guess is he’ll do the typical thing, forgetting all the complicated advice from Mayweather Sr. and just bum rush Pacquiao repeatedly, hoping for the best but getting the worst of it. The bum rush strategy, something Hatton has made famous in fights against Kostya Tszyu, Jose Luis Castillo and not so famous in his fight against Mayweather Jr., is been an old standby for Hatton for many years and it’s mostly worked well for him during that time.
Only recently, in a loss to Mayweather Jr. and in a fight against Juan Lazcano, where Hatton was hurt twice in the fight while rushing in wildly, did his bum rush strategy not work. Unless I miss my guess, it will probably fail again when Hatton meets up with Pacquiao. Pacquiao will be ready for it. His trainer Freddie Roach will have prepared Pacquiao extensively on how to cope with Hatton’s face forward attacks, likely having him move just enough to pick Hatton off as he comes forward.
Hatton did a good job in his last fight, ducking under the jab of Malignaggi to land right hands. It won’t work against Pacquiao. He’ll fire off blazing fast combinations when Hatton tires to lob his slow right hands and get his shots in well before him.
In the end, I doubt Hatton will be able to make it even as far as Oscar De La Hoya without folding. Perhaps the only reason that Oscar made it that far was because he was able to use the ring to escape to the outside for brief spells. This saved him from taking even more punishment, but in the end it couldn’t save him from losing the battle, because eventually Pacquiao caught up to him enough times to take his heart and beat him into quitting.
Hatton won’t do this, and will instead rush foolishly straight into the maw of Pacquiao’s much superior offensive firepower and will be quickly riddled to pieces. By the time that he realizes that he made a mistake, Hatton will be too hurt to escape and will be overwhelmed and taken out by Pacquiao. If Hatton’s lucky, he might see the 6th round but no more than that.
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