By Scott Gilfoid: Losing is probably the last thing that Ricky Hatton (45-1, 32 KOs) has on his mind as he prepares for his fight against Manny Pacquiao (48-2-2, 36 KOs) but it might be a reality that Ricky will have to face. But what’s worse than losing, is the question about what Hatton should do if he does lose. That’s a big question, because chances are, Hatton is going to get beaten and probably quite badly, much worse than he did against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in December 2007.
In that fight, Hatton was stopped in the 10th round, but the beating wasn’t really bad until the last three rounds, at which time Hatton began taking a lot of flush shots from Mayweather. But against Pacquiao, who is a lot busier fighter than Mayweather ever was, you can expect Hatton to be getting hit a lot. That’s the problem.
If you give Pacquiao a chance to land a lot of shots for an entire fight, there’s not much chance that his opponent will make it out of the fight without being stopped. Hatton, no defensive wiz, will be making it easy for Pacquiao, because he won’t have to go looking for him. Hatton will be there right in front of him, looking to land his short punches.
At any rate, I think Hatton is going to have to ask some questions to himself after this fight, especially if he loses badly as I think he will. Hatton can choose to continue fighting, moving onto some of consolation bracket against another loser, Oscar De La Hoya, who was recently thumped badly by Pacquiao in December in a 8th round stoppage loss.
Hatton might do well in this fight, make a little money (thought not nearly as much as he would have made before a loss to Pacquiao) while serving the purpose of putting Oscar out of his misery. But as far as taking on other top fighters in boxing, Hatton, by virtue of another knockout loss, would be a much less appealing star.
Mayweather would probably still want to fight him, because there’s not that many other easy alternatives for Floyd. There’s only De La Hoya, Hatton, Pacquiao and that’s about it. The stars, once they make it to the top, seem to be fighting only other top fighters and not letting other younger, arguably better fighters, get a chance to build their names as well.
Hatton would probably take a fight with Mayweather in a second, and like the first time, lose by another knockout. At that point, it would be three knockout losses for Hatton. Still, I doubt that he would want to retire nor do I think he’d want to start fighting lesser fighters, either. He’d probably work for another fight with Pacquiao or possibly one with Oscar.
Pacquiao would beat Hatton again by knockout, giving Hatton a 4th knockout loss. Then, I would hope, that Hatton would start considering retirement because the losses would probably be damaging to his chin as well as his reputation.
He could all of a sudden decide on once again start challenging for one of the light welterweight titles, but by that time, I would give him little chance at beating fighters like Timothy Bradley, Ricardo Torres or Kendall Holt. He’d probably lose to all of them by then, if not already now, and then really be forced to look in the mirror and answer some questions to himself.
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