Boxing – Hatton vs. Judah on July 18th; Fury Eyeing British Title

By Boxing News - 05/21/2009 - Comments

hatton24355By William Mackay: Welterweight Matthew Hatton (37-4-1, 14 KOs) will be taking on former welterweight champion Zab Judah on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather vs. Juan Manuel Marquez bout on July 18th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hatton, 28, the younger brother of Ricky Hatton, has done little to deserve a bout against a top tier fighter like Judah other than being the brother of Ricky.

Hatton does have a four fight winning streak since losing an embarrassingly lopsided 12-round decision to Craig Watson last year in May in a failed attempt at winning the Common welterweight title. Nothing has changed much since then aside from Hatton beating four beatable opponents in Scott Woolford, Ben Tackie, Ted Bami and Ernesto Zepeda.

While Tackie and Bami are good overall fighters, Judah is on another level from those fighters and it’s hard to see how Hatton will do any better against him than he did against Watson. Hatton still has a good chin and he may be able to stick around long enough to take advantage of Judah’s tendency to fade late in his fights, but Hatton doesn’t have the power to take advantage of Judah’s poor stamina like Carlos Baldomir, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey were able to do. Perhaps the best that Hatton can hope for in this fight is to lose by a lopsided decision to Judah. More than likely Judah takes Hatton out by the 6th or 7th.

Fury Getting Closer to British Title fight

Undefeated heavyweight Tyson Fury (5-0, 5 KOs) is inching closer to getting a chance at the British heavyweight title if he can defeat 6’7” Scott Belshaw this Saturday night at the Watford Coliseum in an 8-round step up bout.

Fury, 20, needs to beat Belshaw first and then one more fight before taking on the current British heavyweight champion Danny Williams. Should Fury be able to capture the British heavyweight title he will likely move on and try to capture the European champion heavyweight title before moving on to bigger and better things by then seeking out a world heavyweight title.

Williams would be a tough task for a fighter like Fury, who has beaten five C-class fighters since turning pro last year. Although the 35-year-old Williams has lost a lot of his abilities in the past five years, he still appears to be a level or two above what I’ve seen of Fury up to this point.

Of course, Williams may age over night and suddenly start looking like 40-year-old soon, unless that happens Fury might be wasting his time trying to rush into a fight with Williams at this early point in Fury’s career. If anything, Fury needs to put his focus on trying to beat Belshaw this Saturday night, because that figures to be a very tough fight for Fury and one that he could easily lose unless he’s totally focused and fighting smart.

Still, Fury is hoping that with a win against Belshaw he can then fight Chisora, 24, in a British heavyweight title eliminator with the winner getting a bout against Williams. Chisora, one of the better British heavyweights, is entirely unafraid of Fury, dismissing him altogether and seeing a win over him as an easy thing.

However, Fury isn’t all that impressed with Chisora as well, saying what has Chisora has done to deserve a British title. Fury takes aim at the way that Chisora had to struggle to defeat journeyman Daniel Peret in his last fight, a fighter that Fury took out quick in a 2nd round stoppage.

Also on the card, Commonwealth middleweight champion Darren Barker will be defending his title against challenger Darren McDermott.



Comments are closed.