By Eric Thomas: Former middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins is picking Ricky Hatton (45-1, 32 KOs) to beat Manny Pacquiao this Saturday night at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hopkins, 44, had previously chosen Pacquiao to beat Hatton. However, Hopkins made an about face in a recent interview with Sky Sports, saying that if Hatton catch Pacquiao leaping in with his shots, Hatton can win by a close decision.
Hopkins thinks it would be a mistake for Hatton to try and brawl with Pacquiao, and thinks that would favor the quicker Pacquiao if Hatton chooses to do this because of Pacquiao’s pinpoint punches. Hopkins sees Pacquiao as a sharpshooter and describes his fighting style as similar to Karate practitioner in the way that Pacquiao leaps in and out with fast shots.
Hopkins sees Pacquiao as an expert counter puncher. The best way for Hatton to defeat Pacquiao’s leaping in and out style of fighting, Hopkins says, is for Hatton to try and time Pacquiao when he leaps in for his shots and try to pick him off with hard shots.
As for when Hatton is on the attack, Hopkins thinks that Hatton should come in with his jab, and not lead with his head like he often does. Hatton needs to use a lot of head movement to try and razzle dazzle Pacquiao. Hopkins thinks that Hatton is going to surprise a lot of people by beating Pacquiao on Saturday night.
Hatton, 30, certainly has his work cut out for him. In the past two weeks, many of the boxing experts that had previously given Hatton a good chance of beating Pacquiao, have suddenly written him off as a sure fire loser. It’s hard to tell what has brought on the chance of feelings, since nothing has really changed in the past month in terms of injuries or illnesses for Hatton.
It could be that the Pacquiao-Hatton 24/7 series has had an effect on some of them, because Freddie Roach, the trainer for Pacquiao, has made it a point to show video of Pacquiao beating up various sparring partners and leaving them on the canvas, usually from big body shots.
In most cases, though, the sparring partners look smaller than Hatton, so it doesn’t impress me nearly as much as it might other writers with a less clear picture of who Pacquiao is sparring with.
Hopkins is dead on correct in analyzing Pacquiao’s leaping in and out style of fighting. Hatton is going to have to fight a way to guess when Pacquiao is going to make his attacks and try to hit him with something hard as he’s coming in, because if Hatton can’t do that, he’ll be helpless to stop Pacquiao’s slashing attacks.
Pacquiao is quite good at skipping in and out, which makes him much more dangerous than the average light welterweight that comes in and out of range in a much slower way than Pacquiao. One would hope that Floyd Mayweather Sr. has trained Hatton on Pacquiao’s style of attacks. It’s not an easy style to mimic.
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