By Nate Anderson: With last Saturday’s impressive 12-round unanimous decision over former WBC light welterweight champion, unbeaten Timothy Bradley (22-0, 11 KOs) fights himself as the top guy in the junior welterweight division and the new star on the block. However, he’s still not quite the top guy in the division, for just below him at the next open slot in the WBC rankings is former champion Ricky Hatton, the fighter that many people feel is the best fighter in the division. However, Hatton, 29, appears to be mostly living on his past accolades in the division, for he hasn’t done much since defeating Juan Urango and Jose Luis Castillo last year.
Both were impressive fights, most fans would admit, but Hatton hasn’t continued to prove himself since that time. He took time off from the division to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. in December, which turned out to be a good move financially for Hatton but resulted in him being stopped in the 10th round. Hatton was simply too small for Mayweather, which he admitted later on. Since then, Hatton has decided to move back down to the light welterweight division where he previously held the IBF title. Before taking on the best in the division, Hatton has decided to take an easy tune-up fight against Juan Lazcano on May 24th.
Most people expect Hatton to destroy Lazcano, a good fighter but not in the class of Hatton by means. With this out of the way, Haton has to make the decision of whether to take on the newly crowned WBC champion Timothy Bradley or else duck him to look for easier bouts. Bradley has already said that he’s more than interested in fighting Hatton in his first defense of his title, so there’s no question about Hatton having to wait for a shot at the title.
I have to wonder though how well Hatton would do against a fighter in the class of the 24 year-old Bradley. Not only is Bradley six years younger than Hatton, he’s also the harder puncher and much faster than Hatton in terms of hand speed. Aside from Mayweather, Hatton has never fought a fighter in the class of Bradley in his career. Hatton’s best win to date, his 11th round stoppage of former IBF junior welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu, in June 2005, was less impressive than it would have been otherwise considering that it had come about at the very end of Tszyu’s career. Even then, Hatton barely had the lead at the time of the stoppage.
With Bradley, however, he’s not old like Tszyu and he has much more hand speed and probably equal in terms of power. On paper, this seems like a fairly easy win for Bradley, because of his superior speed and power, plus he’s not had to deal with weight issues like Hatton in the past few years. Bradley stays in shape year round and looks like a carved statue in comparison to Hatton’s often rounded look. Yet, Bradley seems to fight in the type of style that Hatton enjoys, namely by standing directly in front of his opponents, trying to take them out with mostly right hands. He doesn’t move round the ring like Mayweather or Witter, and tends to go straight at his opponents in a straight line. That seems tailor made for Hatton, who is at his best when he has a fighter that is choosing to stay where he can see them.
Bradley’s lack of a left hand is also a problem because he puts too much emphasis on that punch, and Hatton is quick to pick up on tendencies in his opponents. Unlike Witter, Hatton wouldn’t stand straight up and allow Bradley to land one of his wild right hands. Hatton would pick off the wide stuff and come underneath with hooks to the body and head. Bradley showed weakness in taking shots to the body from Witter, but Hatton would take more advantage of this weakness than did Witter. I see this as being a problem for Bradley because he didn’t seem to like it whenever Witter would bang to the body. It’s unfortunate for Witter that he didn’t stick to the body, because he was only having mixed results trying to land head shots against Bradley.
Witter’s mentor, Brendon Ingle, believes that Hatton would not only beat Bradley, but would beat him quite easily, saying “Hatton would stop this guy in four or five rounds,” Ingle told to Setanta sports. Though Ingle still feels that Witter would beat Hatton, due to the style matchup, but he feels that Bradley is made to order for Hatton. With that, I’m in full agreement with him. Bradley is nothing like Mayweather or Luis Collazo, both of whom Hatton struggled with due to their speed counter punching style. Hopefully, Hatton decides upon taking a fight with Bradley rather than looking elsewhere in the division.