By Allan Fox: Former two division world champion Ricky Hatton sees Floyd Mayweather Jr beating Manny Pacquiao in their mega-fight if the two of them can successfully negotiate the fight for 5/2 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Hatton doesn’t say why precisely that he feels that Mayweather will win, but he does see it as being a competitive match. Hatton thinks that Mayweather has shown signs of slipping in his last two fights against Marcos Maidana, both of which that Mayweather won.
Hatton says that Pacquiao seems to have improved as a fighter since his knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012.
“I’ve always favored Mayweather, but Mayweather hasn’t looked as good in his last two fights,” Hatton said via the Dailystar.co.uk. “And Manny, after his knockout against Juan Manuel Marquez, he’s seemed to be getting a little better. So I still probably give Floyd the edge, but not so much as I did not so long ago.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPZnVjA0eBY
You can’t really know whether Pacquiao has improved or not, because he’s faced less than the best opposition since his loss to Marquez. In Pacquiao’s three fights since the Marquez fight, Pacquiao has beaten Brandon Rios, Tim Bradley and Chris Algieri. Those are good fighters, but not nearly in the same league as Mayweather in terms of skills.
Hatton has faced both Mayweather and Pacquiao in the past and lost to both. Pacquiao destroyed Hatton by a 2nd round knockout in 2009; whereas Hatton was stopped by Mayweather in a 10th round TKO defeat in 2007. Some boxing fans think that Mayweather softened Hatton up for Pacquiao to score an easy KO victory over him.
It’s hard to know for sure, but what we do know is that Hatton had taken off a lot of weight just before the Pacquiao-Hatton fight, and that Hatton had been said to have been dominated by Erislandy Lara in an ill-advised sparring session that the two of them had been involved in.
The negotiations between Mayweather and Pacquiao are still ongoing, and it’s unclear when they’ll be finished. Lance Pugmire of the LA Times is saying that the fight could be announced by tomorrow on Tuesday. He’s hearing information that the fight could be ready to go by then. However, it’s still hard to know for sure because the remaining issues that are holding back the fight being signed could very well still be present.
Last Sunday, Mayweather addressed the rumors that Pacquiao had signed the contract for the fight, saying “I haven’t signed yet and he hasn’t signed yet. It’s just been speculations and rumors but I’m hopeful we can make the fight happen.”
It’s obviously better for both Mayweather and Pacquiao if they get the fight signed and ready to go by Tuesday, because that would still leave 11 days for the two fighters to market the fight to the boxing public in terms of a press tour.
If the negotiations eat up more time then that’s going to get in the way of them being able to sell the fight to the larger boxing public. They’re going to need as much as possible to promote the fight to the casual boxing fans who don’t regularly follow the sport on a weekly basis.
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