By Scott Gilfoid: It was sad to see former light welterweight champion Ricky Hatton (44-1, 31 KOs) struggle last night to defeat a non-top ranked opponent Juan Lazcano (37-5-1, 27 KOs), whom he defeated by 12-round unanimous decision at the Manchester Stadium, in front of 50,000 screaming Hatton fans. The scores, 120-110, 118-110 and 120-108, were slightly misleading because Lazcano did well in stretches of the fight, hurting Hatton in the 8th and 10th rounds of the bout with excellent left hands.
Hatton looked good at times, especially when he wasn’t getting any punches thrown back at him. When he was able to just throw punches, Hatton looked about the same as old, but he looked far less impressive when Lazcano would fire back at him with big shots. In the case of Hatton, he got caught twice with left hooks and was badly shaken in the 8th & 10th, and in the case of the 10th round, it appeared that he was saved from a knockout by the hometown referee. The referee stepped in while Hatton was taking a ferocious beating in the 10th, and stopped the fight to issue first a warning and then later giving Hatton yet even more time by allowing him to have his shoe tied.
It wasn’t something that many people were used to seeing from Hatton, who up until his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in December 2007, he looked almost invincible. His chin, however, doesn’t seem to have made it through the Mayweather fight in one piece, for which he still appears to be experiencing lingering after effects of the knockout.
Hatton looked good for the most part in rounds one though seven, showing glimpses of his once impressive offensive skills. He landed a constant barrage of punches, mostly hooks, against Lazcano and kept him under constant duress. However, as far as Hatton’s defense goes, he looked very poor and was hit far too much by an average fighter. I would have hated to have seen what someone good, like Timothy Bradley, would have done to Hatton. It wouldn’t have been pretty.
For as average as Hatton looked against Lazcano, he’ll probably be okay for the near future because his next fight with be against IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi, a fighter with very little power to worry Hatton. Beyond that fight, Hatton has a likely rematch with Mayweather in 2009, and after that, who knows? Oscar De La Hoya or perhaps even Manny Pacquiao may be potential opponents. Hatton, however, will likely lose again to Mayweather, presumably by another knockout.
It won’t matter, for Hatton will likely stay popular enough for fans to want to risk their money watching him fight someone like De La Hoya or Pacquiao. Hatton doesn’t have the size or the chin to beat De La Hoya, nor does he appear to have the speed and boxing ability to defeat Pacquiao. As Hatton showed against Lazcano last Saturday, he doesn’t have the chin to beat the top fighters in the division any longer. Fighters like Junior Witter and Timothy Bradley would likely be too strong for him, and if the fight were in a neutral country, they would likely knock him out in short order.