Roach: “If we win that (fight against Diaz), we want Ricky Hatton”

By Boxing News - 01/01/2008 - Comments

According to the latest boxing news, the trainer for Super featherweight Manny Pacquiao (45-3-2, 35 KOs), Freddie Roach recently said to boxingtalk website “If we win that fight against Diaz, we want Ricky Hatton. Ricky had a great performance against Mayweather. There are certain guys at 140 lb that I will let Manny fight, and Ricky Hatton is one of them.” Perhaps Pacquiao and Roach noticed how limited Hatton looked against Mayweather, and figured that if Floyd could make Hatton look so marginal, than a fighter as lightning fast and as powerful as Pacquiao could box circles around the slow-footed Hatton.

Clearly, it would be a huge fight world wide should Hatton and Pacquiao come to an agreement. At this point it would be an almost ideal situation for Hatton, 29, as he’s got few options of big money fights now that he’s moving back down to the super lightweight division (140 lbs). Of the top fighters, Gavin Rees, Junior Witter, Ricardo Torres and Paulie Malignaggi, none of them would command the type of attention that Hatton would get from a bout with Pacquiao. More than that, all of them would be dangerous bouts for Hatton to take, especially Malignaggi and Witter, both of whom are better boxers than Hatton and would likely give him big problems should he agree to fight with one of them.

However, with Pacquiao, Hatton would be getting both another huge payday as well as a built in excuse if he should lose the bout. At least in losing to Pacquiao, if it were to happen, he could say that Pacquiao’s speed was too much for him handle. However, I’m not certain that Hatton would lose the fight because he’d have a huge size advantage over Pacquio, and likely a big crowd backing him as well, because the fight would likely be made in England.

Pacquiao, it seems, would be the perfect opponent for Hatton, as he tends to stand in front of his opponents and brawl with them. Against the smaller fighters in the super featherweight division this isn’t a problem for Pacquiao, but against a stocky fighter of Hatton’s size, he would likely have huge problems dealing with his power, as well as his grappling techniques on the inside.

Aside from that, it seems that both Roach and Pacquiao appear to be overlooking Juan Manuel Marquez (48-3, 35 KOs), whom Pacquiao is set to face on March 15th for the World Boxing Council super featherweight title held by Marquez.

It seems especially presumptuous of Pacquiao considering the fact his previous fight with Marquez, now 34, resulted in a draw. Taking away the first two rounds of the fight in which Marquez was knocked down three times by Pacquiao, Juan controlled the rest of the fight, hitting Pacquiao with sharp counter punches each time he would come rushing in with his wild attacks. However, if Pacquiao does get past Marquez, he must first beat David Diaz, the World Boxing Council lightweight champion, who recently retired Erik Morales after defeating him by a close 12-round unanimous decision.

That would seem like a much easier task for Pacquiao to accomplish considering that Diaz barely scraped by with a win over Morales. However, it sill won’t be an easy task for Pacquiao, because of Diaz’s size advantage going into the fight. However, Pacquiao has the speed and the power to negate Diaz’s small advantage in weight but it won’t be as easy as Pacquiao thinks it is, and he’ll likely take a lot of punishment in return from Diaz.



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