By Scott Gilfoid: Perhaps even if he tried, Ricky Hatton (44-1, 31 KOs) couldn’t have picked a worse opponent than former International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (25-1, 5 KOs) to fight tomorrow night at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Boxing fans have shown very little interest in this fight, other than Hatton’s loyal British fans who would probably watch Hatton if he were to stand and paint the side of a barn.
Part of the problem is that few fans, aside from ones that live on the East coast or those that have a lot of boxing knowledge, know who Malignaggi is. Of those that do, many could care less about watching Hatton fight an opponent who is considered more of a defensive fighter, a runner, than a fighter that will be trying to mix it up with Hatton.
Unfortunately for Hatton, he had few other options for big named opponents, because there simply aren’t any well known fighters in the light welterweight division besides himself. There is, however, probably several fighters that are better than Malignaggi, perhaps much better than him, such as Junior Witter, Timothy Bradley, Andreas Kotelnik, Kendall Holt and Ricardo Torres, but Hatton didn’t want to face them for some reason.
Who knows? Maybe they angered him by calling him out and asking for a fight. Malignaggi in effect is like spraying weed killer on the box office, keeping fans away in droves and doing little to bring excitement into this Saturday night’s fight.
In order for there to be excitement about a particular fight, the fight has to be considered a competitive fight and one that will have a lot of appealing action. Unfortunately, it can’t be said of this fight because Hatton is thought by many to be way too strong for Malignaggi, and will likely run over him in this bout.
The only real interest is if Hatton has changed his fighting style enough to where it may affect him in a negative manner, perhaps causing him to lose the fight. Hatton recently shed his old trainer Billy Graham and signed on Floyd Mayweather Sr., a trainer known for teaching fighters a lot of defensive strategies to win fights.
However, Hatton has always been a slugger who depends on fighting aggressively in order to win his fights. It’s unclear what will happen if he tries to box with Malignaggi, a fighter known for his excellent boxing techniques. If that happens, we may see an upset on Saturday night, because Hatton clearly doesn’t have the same skills that Malignaggi has and he’d be a fool if he tries to outbox him.
Most likely, Hatton will come out trying to box in the first half of the fight, and when he finds himself struggling badly against Malignaggi, Hatton will make adjustments and ditch his boxing experiment and go back to what works for him – namely slugging. For this reason alone, tomorrow’s bout will probably be much closer than it normally would have been if Hatton had just come out slugging.
I see Mayweather Sr. pressuring Hatton to stick to boxing, even when it’s clear that he’s not doing well with it until finally, Hatton just ignores Mayweather completely and goes back to his brawling style of fighting. Once he does that, I see him having an easy time with Malignaggi, probably busting up his face and hurting him.
I doubt that he’ll knock him out because Malignaggi is a safety-first fighter and will run when the going gets tough. As such, the fight will stink in the second half but Hatton will get the win.
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