By Sean McDaniel: Many moons ago in 2005, Ricky Hatton pulled off arguably his biggest win of his boxing career in stopping light welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu in the 11th round in Manchester. In that fight, Hatton was in his prime, a nonstop punching machine with a sturdy chin and grappling skills second to none. At the start of the fight, Hatton was all over the 36-year-old Tszyu, smothering him, not giving the Russian champion any room to get off his punches.

Hatton was youthful then, and looked much fitter and stronger than he was in his 2nd round KO loss to Manny Pacquiao last week. My question is could that version of Hatton been good enough to neutralize Pacquiao’s power, and force him to fight on the inside where Pacquiao is much more vulnerable to the big punches of Hatton.

Part of what made Hatton so successful against Tszyu in that fight was that Hatton was allowed to wrestle on the inside for prolonged periods of time without the referee stepping in to halt the non-action and separate them. In a place like Las Vegas, Nevada, Hatton would have never been able to fight the way he did against Tszyu, because the referee would have been all over him, either telling him to stop wrestling or just wordlessly separating him from Tszyu.

However, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that Pacquiao had been talked into travelling to Manchester and fighting the bout on Hatton’s home turf with an English referee, who would be much more inclined to let Hatton wrestle for as long as he likes.

How would an all action fighter like Pacquiao been able to deal with the wrestling of Hatton? I have no doubts that Pacquiao would have been able to land some big shots as Hatton would come forward. I doubt it, though, that Pacquiao’s big shots would have had any effect on Hatton, because his chin was still sturdy at that point in his career, and not weakened by a knockout loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and the effects of years of overeating and drinking.

Pacquiao wouldn’t be able to land more than one or two shots before Hatton would be on him, grabbing him and wrestling at close range for prolonged periods of time. The only real punches that could be landed in that situation are shot punches with much less power than the big shots from the outside.

Although I think that Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, would have come up with a good game plan, but back then I doubt it would have worked well against Hatton, who would be given cart blanche to wrestle for as long as he’d like by whoever the referee was.

Pacquiao is a great fighter, but he’s nowhere near as skilled a wrestler as Hatton. I think Pacquiao would be athletic enough to score some shots in between being twisted like a pretzel by Hatton on the inside, but I suspect that by the 11th round, Pacquiao would be exhausted from the constant back and forth wrestling on the inside and that Hatton would be a good position to score a knockout over Pacquiao.

The difference in this fight would be Hatton’s better chin, home environment where he’s allowed to wrestle, and his youth. It’s too bad that Hatton’s prime lasted so short a time, because at for that one fight, Hatton was probably too good for Pacquiao and would have beaten him.