By Jim Dower: Welterweight Matthew Hatton (36-4-1, 14 KOs) continued with his recent career success with a 6th round stoppage over Ted Bami (26-5, 13 KOs) on Saturday night at the Leisure Centre, Altrincham, in Cheshire. Hatton, 27, the younger brother of British boxing star Ricky Hatton, nailed Bami with a hard left hook in the 6th to put him down. Referee Terry O’Connor swooped in and stopped the fight at 2:03 of the round.
Hatton showed a much better work rate than he’s had in the past, keeping busy by landing hard to the body of Bami with left and right hooks. Bami had some success as well early on landing right hands. However, Hatton never stayed close enough for Bami to land as often as he liked. On the outside, Hatton jabbed well, hitting Bami over and over again with stinging shot.
In the 4th and 5th rounds, Hatton began to step it up a bit, throwing more powerful hooks to the body. Hatton looked very impressive when punching to the body, as he seems to have developed more with his body punching than he had in the past.
Previously, Hatton seemed to lack the fire and intensity of his brother Ricky when throwing to the body. However, on Saturday night, Matthew looked very similar to his brother and gave Bami huge problems with his big shots.
In the 6th round, Hatton continued landing hooks to both sides of Bami’s midsection, slowing him down and giving him considerable problems. Finally, Hatton dipped really low and pitched in a devastating left hook that dropped Bami to the canvas where he was counted out by referee Terry O’Connor at 2:03 of the round.
For Hatton, it was his third consecutive victory since getting a boxing lesson in a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision loss to Craig Watson a year ago in May in Hatton’s failed attempt to capture the Commonwealth (British Empire) welterweight title.
Since then, Hatton has shown considerable improvement in beating Scott Woolford, Ben Tackie and now Bami. However, none of these fighters are in the class of unbeaten South African Bongani Mwelase (13-0, 12 KOs), the World Boxing Foundation welterweight champion, who Hatton could be finding himself in the ring with in the near future.
Hatton will be fighting on the undercard of Ricky’s May 2nd fight with Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas, Nevada, so this will allow Matthew to get some badly needed exposure in front of a worldwide audience. One hopes that Matthew can get a good opponent for that date so that he can get more credit should he end up winning.
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