By Chris Williams: Commonwealth (British Empire) welterweight champion Craig Watson (13-2, 4 KOs) had an easy time defeating challenger Matthew Hatton (33-4-1, 13 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision on Saturday night in Manchester. The final judges’ scores were 116-112, 117-112 and 118-111. The fight was even more lopsided than the scores suggest, as Watson, 25, controlled virtually every round of the fight, out-landing Hatton by a significant margin. Hatton, 27, the younger brother of former light welterweight champion Ricky Hatton, looked poor for the most part, too slow and for some reason unable to let his hands go with much regularity.
Perhaps the major reason for his inability to throw punches, I believe, is because Watson would tag him with combinations each time Hatton would attempt to land anything. That was made possible because of Hatton’s terrible hand speed, which seemed as if he had a great deal of dead fast twitch nerve tissue in his arms. Going into the bout, I thought Hatton might have a decent chance at winning the title given his impressive record of 33 wins.
However, after pouring through his previous fights, I discovered to my astonishment that Hatton had largely fought almost entirely C-class fighters and below during his entire career. Based on that, I suddenly had a really bad feeling about his bout with Watson, because at least he had fought some live bodies during his career. However, even in his case, it’s not exactly a comforting feeling knowing that a so-called champion was stopped in the 3rd round in his last fight, in this case against an Italian fighter named Daniele Petrucci. Whatever the case, both fighters obviously came into the bout with some minor flaws here and there with their game, but it would still be interesting to see which was the least flawed of the two fighters.
After about a minute of the first round, I already had made up my mind about whom I felt the winner would be, after noticing that the younger Hatton had an almost zero hand speed, a slow plodding style of fighting and a poor work rate, as I mentioned already. I could see some slight resemblances between him and his brother, Ricky’s style of fighting, but only just a little. I was frankly astonished that he could train alongside his brother for so long, yet look completely unlike him in style.
I don’t know, but if Ricky was my brother, I think I would work like the devil to patter my game like him as much as possible. But, then again, he probably found out early on that he didn’t have his power or aggression, and hence couldn’t fight like him and be successful. In terms of looks, Matthew Hatton looks more like his father, a short slender man, while Ricky looks more like his mother, who is somewhat stocky and powerful looking. This, of course, has nothing to do with the fight, but I thought it interesting to wonder why Matthew was so mediocre in comparison to his brother.
In the 1st round, Watson moved around in circles, attacking often with jabs and quick combinations, befuddling Hatton, who looked as if his feet were stuck in a large pool of deep mud. Most of the time, Watson would rip off combinations to the head of Hatton, who by the time he had decided to answer back with his own punches, Watson would scatter away to the outside.
Hatton was already looking more than a little dispirited in the 2nd round, perhaps knowing even then that he didn’t have the speed for skills to match up with the blazing fast Watson. I felt sorry for him in a way, because he seemed so transparent, as if you could read what he was thinking just by looking at his body language and facial expressions. I felt then that he needed some major advice, maybe a pep talk because Watson was very beatable but Hatton was going about it all wrong.
Instead of hanging back, and not letting his hands go, Hatton needed to go right after him like his brother likely would, trap him, and hit him with everything in the kitchen sink. The most important part, I think, was that Hatton needed to not give him any room to move or punch, which as it turns out, was what he was allowing him to do. There was absolutely no fire in Hatton, just a kind of sad disappointment even then. I suppose it must be hard to be the younger brother of Ricky. There’s so much to live up to, and must be a real daunting feeling for Matthew.
In the 3rd round, Watson continued to have his way with Hatton, hitting him when he wanted as much as he wanted, and not getting hit in return. I only counted four punches from Hatton in the entire round, with most of his activity spent either clinching for attempt to cover up. He stalked a lot, but did nothing when he got in range. It was if he was posing as a fighter with movements, yet not throwing punches like a normal boxer.
Hatton landed one big punch in all of the 4th, a nice right uppercut. I don’t know why, but I expected him to finally start throwing more punches, for the crowd finally had a reason to cheer, yet Hatton slid back and once again stayed dormant for the remainder of the round.
In the 5th round, Hatton, now starting to take an ugly beating, looked at the referee for help during one clinch. For the life of me, I have no idea what Hatton was looking for, perhaps wanting the referee to scold Watson for beating him so soundly. Whatever it was, Hatton finally threw a few punches, perhaps a half dozen in total during the round, which was a 200% improvement over his previous rounds work. He still was badly out-landed by Watson, who continued to circle him, taking shots at him like he was a wounded animal.
In rounds six through ten, Hatton continued to come forward largely doing nothing but taking shots from the speedy Watson. Hatton began moving more himself, circling and like usual, doing nothing with his hands. It seemed an absurd way of fighting to me, and he should have tried at least to make some adjustments considering the alternative, which was to continue to take a beating. Hatton lost his mouthpiece in the 8th after taking a good left hand from Watson.
As he was having his mouthpiece reinserted, he looked so defeated, his whole posture seemed to exude defeat. I couldn’t figure out where was the fire in the guy. If there was any part of his brother in him, he should have been thinking that he needed to at least go out on his shield if he were going to have to take a beating. In the 10th round, Hatton attempted to clinch Watson, who then grabbed him and spun out if it, pushing him like he was a top in the process. It was an excellent move by Watson, who shoved Hatton roughly and seemingly with distain in the process.
Watson continued with his masterful boxing in round 11 and 12, landing constant straight left hands to the head of the slower Hatton. However, Hatton did show some improvement, throwing five punches in the 11th and a whopping six in the 12. It wasn’t good, of course, but it was a whopping improvement of over his horrid work rate in the previous 10 rounds.