Hatton Needs to Put His Training Wheels On And Start Over
June 18th, 2009
By Chris Williams: If you look at the mess of that Ricky Hatton has made of his once promising career on the past two years, with his two losses to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, it becomes clear that Hatton’s primitive caveman style of fighting has to go immediately if he wants to make a comeback. Since Hatton failed rather miserably in his attempts to learn under the tutelage of great trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr., it looks as if it’s going to take someone a little more strict and confrontational than Mayweather Sr., to unlearn Hatton of his primitive style of fighting.
Hatton needs a strong trainer who won’t try to be his friend and won’t be afraid of being fired if Hatton doesn’t like how things are going. Hatton can’t be the one dictating how things are going to go, because the dude’s career is on life support at this point and ready to go flat line in a minute unless he gets back in the ring and stops with his vacations and what not.
Hatton needs to get serious and put total focus on actually learning the new style instead of just aping it like last time when he showed things in training but then went out and fought like he always does. Hatton can’t be quality fighters by mugging them like he did in the past, because he got away with that kind of mauling type of fighting because of the mediocre quality of his opponents.
If Hatton had been forced to fight Pacquiao or Mayweather years ago, it would have been like a cold slap in the face and it would have taught him a big lesson. Unfortunately, Hatton grew lazy by being able to fight in his 1950s style of fighting against marginal opposition until he was thrown in with two class A fighters in Pacquiao and Mayweather.
Hatton should have gotten a clue to first time he lost and understood that things weren’t as he believed them to be about his ability. Hatton needs to go way back and do some kind of basic stuff to learn how to use his jab, keep guard up and stay on the outside. We’re talking elementary stuff here that most boxers learn at the start of their career.
But somehow, Hatton seemed to miss out on this training because he’s often used his face to block punches rather than his gloves. That can’t happen anymore because Hatton appears to have a glass jaw now on the same lines as Amir Khan.
Unless Hatton changes his style completely by his next fight, I predict now that he will be knocked out almost as bad as Pacquiao put him out. Pacquiao isn’t a huge puncher by any stretch of the imagination, yet he was able to knock Hatton into the next century with a few shots. That’s a wake up call for Hatton. He needs to make some changes or else his next fight will probably be his last.
Tags: 11 Responses to “Hatton Needs to Put His Training Wheels On And Start Over”
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Ricky Hatton is a great champion. He sought out the best competition in the world to fight.
He put on a very good showing against Floyd
Mayweather. Few men will ever accomplish what he has done. He ruled the 140 pound division for years.
He lost to Pac because he was obviously weight drained.
If Duran, Leonard, Joe Louis, Ali and Foreman can get beat and comeback, then so can Ricky Hatton. He is a great man, a great fighter, a great champion.
Rumours abound that he will fight in Cardiff around november….Pacman has gained a lot of power in the last 18 months, he caught Hatton with some great shots.
Hatton can make a comeback if he changes his style and understands that he is not the best in the world @140, thats fair enough.
After Zab Judah fights Matthew Hatton and beat him with easy then I hope big brother wants to regain some respect back by going against Zab in a matchup bout at 140. Zab vs. Hatton is a fight to see. Two Champion in the Lt.Welterweigth go head to head. Who’s the better Champion.
I dunno 2Jabs, how can an overated bum go so many fights winning world titles and defending them and moving up in weights and winnin more belts and taking the P4P king Mayweather 10 rounds?
When a world class boxer has world class punching power too he can knock any of his opponants out. Those shots would of knocked out any Lightwelterweight in any round.
Daypass, quality post. 2jabs, poor.
how can a “great” world champion get knocked out in two rounds? look at the state of him in between fights.
I stongly disagree with Cris that “Pacquiao isn’t a huge puncher by any stretch of the imagination”. Just ask the boxers he has KO’d and they will tell you how strong were the punches that Pacman threw at them!
ricky needs to go back and fight them drunk people he fought in england
Nicely Said Mikey
Hatton was a great world champion. He was like-able, exciting to watch, aggressive and more than anything a very humble champ.
People related to Ricky Hatton because he was “one of the guys”. He was a two-weight champion and undefeated untill he reached elite level of competition.
You can say what you want about the guy, he had heart to take the fights against the 2 p4p greats of this decade.
His style worked well and seemed to be working well against Mayweather untill later rounds… simply put, he was an utter nightmare for the majority fighters in the ring with him. Is his style primitive? Yes. Did it work? To some point Yes. Hatton is his own worst enemy, he went into the Pacquaio fight believing he was bigger.
As for your comment on Hatton having a glass jaw Chris, I’m not sure if you have seen the replay or heard the phrase “Speed Kills”? Pacquaio has explosive speed, the 3rd knock-down was a perfectly executed rising hook. It had Hatton on the button… I dare you to find anyone at the weight who could have taken a shot like that and got up to continue, you f%£king philistine. Learn a little more about boxing my friend, go sparring and see the effect certain punches have.
For once Christine i think i agree with some of what your saying here.
He hasnt flushed away a promisin career, hes had a fantastic career and one that exceeded his expectations when he was starting out.
I think hes way way to late in his career to change much now let alone completely change his style.
But i do think he has this bad style of fighting and its something that should of been dealt with a long long time ago and as much as i like Billy Graham i think he really enjoyed being the trainer to Hattons ferocious and exciting style and between them got blinded to the punishment Hatton had to take in his fights and the ease with which it could be dished out to him.
This was always going to catch up with him and it would also always be completely exposed when taking on the elite. They are just too good to have such an easy target put in front of them who is also quite obvious in what hes guna do and that is Hatton.
Im sure the diet doesnt help much either.
I still think hes a very handy boxer, theres just a level hes unable to reach but theres not many other guys on that level.
But then whats he like now mentally? Hes done the domestic and european scenes, hes won the world titles and been the king of the division, hes moved up in weight and won a world title there too, the next step is the elitist level.
Hes done that twice and twice been sent packin, 2nd time with a right good spanking. Hes mentioned retirement on a few occasions in the last year or so and has a career set up after boxing.
If he did fight a curtian closer to his career im sure it would be the Hatton we all know, if he trys to get his career back on track i feel there will be some hunger or heart missing and fighting like he does he needs both of those in buckets full.
Retire Ricky or spark that prick Witter 1st then retire.
ricky hatton is the most over-rated boxer i have ever seen, he might have been a world champion….but he was never a “great” world champion. ricky hattons style of fighting does not belong in boxing anymore.