By Ron Santos: I am afraid to say it is not good news for Ricky Hatton. The problem with Ricky’s loss to Floyd Mayweather jr is that a blueprint was made. Watching all Ricky’s fights after that loss, both Juan Lazcano and Paulie Malinaggi attempted and certainly landed the ‘check left hook’. The only problem being was that Juan Lazcano lacked the ability to land the hook over and over again and Paulie just pure and simply punches as hard as a ballet dancer. Neither of these fighters are the same calibre as Floyd or Manny.
However Manny is a southpaw so that will be unavailable. What will be available is the straight left and right hook combo. Luis Collazo firmly established that this combination works on Ricky. That fight showed me two things, Ricky’s lack of ability but also showed his heart. Many could argue that Ricky lost that fight and Ricky’s whole career could have taken a different route. However, that fight would’ve have been enough for Freddie Roach to come up with the perfect game plan for Manny to expose Ricky’s one dimensional style. Ricky’s aggressive style will fall perfectly into the hands of Manny’s combo and by the later rounds, those combinations will tell.
The fundamental difference between these fighters is that Manny has evolved into a better fighter whilst Ricky is still a one trick pony that just attacks and tries to overwhelm opponents. For example, Morales game plan for the first fight of the trilogy was to attack Manny as people thought he could not fight on the back foot. This proved to be correct. In the next fight, Morales tried to use that same tactic again but a different result this time.
Many showed signs of improvement and become the first person to not only stop Morales but also the only person to absolutely dominate him. Then the third in the trilogy, Manny’s transformation complete. Manny was dominant in the very short fight, with the most notable knockdown for me was when Morales was attacking Manny on the ropes and Manny simply took a step back and landed a perfect left hook. It is also clear to the progression of Manny’s movement and tactical ability in the Oscar fight.
Luckily I have had the pleasure of seeing Ricky train and whilst it was exciting and very entertaining I kept noticing something strange. Also noticeable in the first episode of Ricky vs Manny 24/7 was that Mayweather Snr is standing orthodox and getting Ricky to slip the punches. Surely it would be much more helpful to switch it over so that it was southpaw? It is all good and well that Mayweather Snr entertains us with poems but he will soon need to be writing a poem explaining why Ricky came short again.
The thing with Ricky is that he is a world champion and that is it. He is not a great champion as he is considerably far behind a lot of fighters on the world stage. For example take Oscar dela Hoya, just retired and boasts 10 world titles at 6 different weight divisions.
Ricky struggles at welterweight and bloats too much between fights to even consider lightweight. It is good to see Ricky learning the basics from Mayweather Snr but I just feel that in every situation that Manny has an answer for Ricky’s one dimensional style. I hope Ricky studies the Oscar vs Manny fight because I feel Manny is going to do the exact same thing to Ricky.
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