By Dave Lahr: Ricky Hatton has made it know that his plans are to fight Juan Manuel Marquez in his next bout after Ricky finishes his business with Manny Pacquiao on May 2nd. This fight seems as tough, if not more, than the Pacquiao bout for Hatton, and it’s questionable that he has the boxing ability to defeat a fighter at the level of Marquez. Hatton has been shielded for most of his career against really skillful fighters in the class of Pacquiao and Marquez.
That’s no knock on Hatton, but more of a product of the less talented fighters in the light welterweight division where he’s dominated over selective competition for the past six years of his career. With the exception of Floyd Mayweather Jr., Hatton hasn’t fought anyone on the level of Marquez in terms of the combination of boxing skills, power and ring smarts.
Marquez, 35, has been the best fighter in the featherweight and super featherweight division for years now, fighting Manny Pacquiao, Chris John, Joel Casamayor, Juan Diaz, Marco Antonio Barrera and many other top fighters and beating most of them.
Hatton’s wins pale in comparison, beating an old, weight drained Kostya Tszyu (and struggling against him), Vince Phillips and Jose Luis Castillo. Hatton’s other wins have come against Luis Collazo, a controversial 12-round decision in 2006, and Paul Malignaggi. The remainder of Hatton’s wins are over fighters not worth mentioning because they simply don’t compare to the talented fighters that Marquez has fought in my humble opinion.
Marquez has a wide variety of punches – straight right, uppercut, hooks, – that he uses to tame his opposition. He rarely fights the same way twice and adapts each time depending on his opponent. In contrast, Hatton is more of a straight ahead type fighter who focuses on going right after his opponents and trying to take them out with big shots.
Throughout most of his career, Hatton’s style has been effective against his slightly lower quality opposition he’s faced, that is, until he faced Mayweather Jr., who methodically picked Hatton apart like he was peeling the wings off a butterfly.
Mayweather exposed all of Hatton’s offensive flaws, taking advantage of Hatton’s wild hooks by nailing him with short punches each time he’d attempt to throw. This was a new experience for Hatton, who up until that point in his career, had been shielded from having to face counter punchers like Mayweather.
Marquez, much in the same way, is also a counter puncher in the identical mode of Mayweather Jr. Marquez may not have quite the same size of Mayweather, but he has similar skills as him.
Like a lot of other writers on this site, I don’t see Hatton as being able to beat Pacquiao. However, I recognize that Hatton will still move on to a fight against Marquez, win or lose against Pacquiao, and continue with his final two fights of his career.
Although I can’t blame Hatton for wanting to take the big cash in fighting a talented fighter like Marquez, I think he’s stupid if he does it. Hatton’s fight against Pacquiao will likely be a bloody affair in which Hatton will take a severe pounding. With a beating like that, Hatton would be smarter to rest his brain and body and go in a different direction than face an almost certain beat down against Marquez.
Comments are closed.