By Manuel Perez: I don’t care if Ricky Hatton lost by a 2nd round knockout to Manny Pacquiao last Saturday night, I think Hatton is still the better fighter of the two. The loss wasn’t about what Pacquiao did right, but rather how badly Hatton messed things up by employing the wrong tactics in the fight. Hatton knows how to box, as he showed in his 11th round win over Paulie Malignaggi, but Hatton just got caught up in the moment and made the mistake of trying to brawl with Pacquiao too early in the fight.
Hatton would have been able to beat Pacquiao by going to war with him, but not from the start of the fight when Pacquiao is usually at his fastest. If Hatton had studied the blue print that Juan Manuel Marquez set before him on how to beat Pacquiao, Hatton would have understood that the best way to beat Manny is to box him in the early going and then come on late with the power to dominate him.
For some reason, Hatton got things in reverse and tried to knock Pacquiao out immediately. Even with that flawed strategy, Hatton could very well have still won if he had not gotten hurt in the opening round. Once Hatton was hurt, he was essentially finished for the night, because Hatton obviously suffered a concussion during the first knockdown in the opening round.
Pacquiao wasn’t anything special on Saturday night. He just took advantage of Hatton when Ricky came plowing forward with his hands down. It was a thoughtless mistake on Hatton’s part, but showed how human he is. Pacquiao makes tons of mistakes all the time, but Hatton needed to stick around long enough to take advantage of Pacquiao’s sloppy boxing.
If Hatton had waited a little longer before opening up offensively, he would have been able to take advantage of Pacquiao’s crude attacks and picked him off with a big shot.
I realize that Pacquiao will never give Hatton a rematch, but if he did Pacquiao would be in for a big surprise next time. You can fool Hatton once, but not twice. He would be ready for Pacquiao the second time around and this time Hatton would be boxing Pacquiao, and not giving him any chances to land his right hook.
Another mistake Hatton made was taking off too much weight before the fight. If you looked at Hatton at the weigh-in, he looked terrible, like someone that had taken off too much muscle weight for the fight. Although Hatton gained back a bunch of the weight after the weigh-in through re-hydrating, he still had a slightly starved look to him.
This had to be because Hatton got too heavy before the fight and waited too long to take the extra tonnage off. If he was smart, Hatton would have taken it off well before the fight and then stripped down the last ten pounds of water weight for the weigh-in. Probably Hatton waited too long to take the weight off and ended up stripping muscle off before the fight.
Hatton had an opportunity to turn things around when his trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr. was giving him some valuable advice in between rounds, but Hatton chose to bold instead, and went out trying to take Pacquiao’s head off.
In hindsight, Hatton realizes that he made a mistake and should have listened to his wise old trainer and followed his advice to the letter. Next time around, you can be sure that Hatton will follow every word that Mayweather Sr. – or whoever his next trainer is – says.
As for Hatton retiring, I think that would be a big mistake. He is still a world class athlete and other than this one time blip in the radar, I can’t see Hatton losing to any other light welterweights in the division.
Sure, there’s not many fighters were fighting in the light welterweight division due the lack of stars, but at least Hatton could get his dignity back by knocking that he’s still the best fighter in his weight class.
If Hatton sticks around for another three or four years in the light welterweight division, I think the big fights will start coming his way again. Pacquiao won’t, of course, but that’s his problem because Hatton is going to remain a huge star in boxing regardless of this loss.
Hatton needs to forget about this, make sure he starts using what was taught to him by Mayweather, and go after a couple of easy fights to get his confidence back. Once Hatton gets by a few stiffs, then he needs to go after one of the big names in boxing like Amir Khan or one of the top welterweights like Miguel Cotto.
A fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. would be a good option too, but Hatton needs to beat a few fighters before he’s ready for the likes of Mayweather.
Comments are closed.