By Eric Thomas: In an interview with the BBC Sport, Joe Calzaghe is choosing Ricky Hatton to beat Manny Pacquiao this Saturday at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, saying “It’s going to be a very tough fight for Ricky, but he’s got a better chance of beating Manny than Floyd Mayweather Jr.” It’s kind of a prediction where it’s hard to tell whether or not Calzaghe truly believes that Hatton really can beat Pacquiao, since Mayweather dominated Hatton for the most part before taking him out in the 10th round in December 2007.
Calzaghe also points out that Hatton has the height advantage in the fight and feel that Hatton needs to get close to Pacquiao and take him out with power shots, saying “He [Hatton] has to take his chance.” Again, it doesn’t exactly sound as if Calzaghe is truly convinced that Hatton can beat Pacquiao from the looks of it.
Perhaps Calzaghe is trying to be nice and not ruffle feathers by picking Pacquiao, which is something that would likely not go over good. Whatever the case, Hatton does seem to be facing a very tough obstacle in facing the speedy, powerful Pacquiao, who is considered by many boxing experts to be the best fighter in all of boxing.
Hatton will have a slight height advantage in the fight at 5’7 ½” compared to Pacquiao who stands an inch shorter at 5’6 ½.” However, Hatton’s height advantage is neutralized by Pacquiao’s two inch reach advantage of 67” compared to Hatton’s 65” reach.
As such, you can pretty much throw out Hatton’s size advantage and focus more on his slightly better power. Hatton does probably hit a little better than Pacquiao, but whether it’s enough for him to come out on top is another matter altogether. Pacquiao is clearly the much faster puncher than Hatton, but Manny doesn’t always use his speed wisely by choosing to throw a lot of wild shots when he comes forward trying to slug it out.
His trainer Freddie Roach has done an admirable job of keeping Pacquiao from staying in range of his opponents like he used to do. Now, Pacquiao mainly likes to use quick in and out surgical strikes in which he throws fast flurries and then gets out of range before his opponents can land much against him.
The speed is often too much for his slower opponents to handle, and they soon find themselves losing round after round while at the same time getting beaten up around the face and eyes. Hatton is going to need to try and time Pacquiao when he comes rushing in for his usual bombardments, and try to catch Pacquiao with at least one or two big shots each time he rushes forward.
In doing that, Hatton might be able to hurt Pacquiao with something big, or short of that, cut him up around the eyes. Pacquiao has a lot of scar tissue over his right eye from his previous rights with Juan Manuel Marquez and Erik Morales and if Hatton can work on that eye with some power shots, he might be able to get the blood flowing enough for it to be a factor in the fight. Pacquiao would be much less dangerous if he is only fighting with one eye. Hatton is going to have to use his boxing skills that were recently taught to him by Mayweather Sr., however, or else he can forget about taking advantage of any cuts of Pacquiao.
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