Can Hatton Find Success If He Changes His Style to Protect His Chin?

By William Mackay: Right now, pretty much everyone has given up on Ricky Hatton and considered him a shot fighter after his 2nd round KO loss to Manny Pacquiao last Saturday night. Pacquiao dominated the short two rounds of the fight, and ended the bout with a hard left hand in the 2nd that knocked Hatton cold for three minutes. After a knockout loss like that, it’s no wonder that many people are calling for Hatton to retire from boxing.

However, I’m wondering if Hatton can retool his defensive capabilities and learn to become a much more defensive minded so that Hatton can prolong his career for a little while longer. In other sports, players change their game based on injuries and the natural aging process.

Baseball pitchers turn to throwing junk, and running backs sometimes switch from halfback to fullback to get a little more mileage out of their careers. The same applies to boxing.

Fighters who earlier in their career were knockout artists and high pressure fighters, often change into more methodical fighters as they get older. At 30, Hatton is starting to show his age and the wear and tear that goes with having 47 pro fights.

Many fighters never reach that many fights in their career and the ones that do often haven’t taken nearly as much punishment that Ricky Hatton has in his 12 year pro career. My thought are that Hatton may be able to get perhaps 10-15 more fights out of his career if he changes his bum rushing style of fighting and focuses on more of a professional style that involves jabbing, covering up, foot movement and clinching. Hatton’s style of fighting was perfect for most of his career, because Hatton spent a good portion of it fighting European fighters.

However, when Hatton began to step it up later in his career I noticed that Hatton began to absorb more and more punishment with each fight, even in winning. That should have been a signal for Hatton way back then that he needed to plan for the future by starting to develop some skills that he could fall back when he’s no longer able to fight in his usual aggressive style.

Unfortunately, Hatton has waited too long to get a good trainer that can teach those kinds of skills, and even after he found one in Floyd Mayweather Sr., Hatton failed to apply what Mayweather was trying to teach him. I think in every loss there’s a lesson for the fight if he’s got his eyes open and is willing to see the truth in defeat.

The lesson for Hatton is that he needs to change his style of fighting or else he’s going to be at risk of suffering further knockouts in the future. It doesn’t mean that Hatton needs to pick up all marbles and quit the sport, but it is a signal that changes need to be made.

If Hatton is smart, he’ll find a trainer that he’s comfortable with and start learning some tools that he can use to prevent getting knocked out in the future. I think it’s possible that Hatton can learn enough to still be a champion at light welterweight, although I would advise Hatton to stay away from fighters like Mayweather and Pacquiao because that would be a bit too much of a risk for Hatton at this point in his career.

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