Could Hatton Beat Tszyu Now?

By Boxing News - 05/30/2009 - Comments

hatton5735776791By Scott Gilfoid: Now that Ricky Hatton has been knocked down a couple of pegs by Manny Pacquiao in his recent 2nd round knockout loss to Pacquiao earlier this month on May 2nd, the question is could Hatton beat Kostya Tszyu at this point in his career or would the Russian fighter have too much for him and knock Hatton clean out?

It’s been four years since Hatton stopped the then 35-year-old Tszyu in the 11th round at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, England, in a fight that was marred by Hatton’s constant wrestling and holding on the inside. At the time, Tszyu held up pretty good for a fighter as old and as inactive as he had been in the past couple of years leading up to the Hatton fight.

It was fought on Hatton’s home turf, in front of his sell crowd and late in the evening. Hatton did a good job of wearing Tszyu out by turning the fight into a wrestling type brawl on the inside, preventing Tsyzu from using his better power and superior boxing skills to knock Hatton out.

Now, four years later, Hatton’s chin has turned to glass with Ricky being knocked out in two of his last four fights, and hurt badly in a third fight against Juan Lazcano, a fight where Hatton had the luck of having a British referee stop the action just seconds after Lazcano had badly hurt Hatton to let Ricky have his shoes tied.

If not for that, there’s a possibility that Hatton would have been knocked out in three out of his last four fights instead of just two. Tszyu, 39, is clearly older and heavier than he was in his prime and would have to take off at least 30 to 40 pounds to make a fight with Hatton at 147 or possibly 154.

However, it’s not a task that Tszyu hasn’t done before as like Hatton, Kostya regularly gained good deal of weight in between fights and did a commendable job of taking the weight off each time without being weight drained. Although in his last fight with Hatton, Tszyu did look more than a little weight drained in my estimation.

So, how would the older Tszyu do against the present, 30-year-old version of Hatton? The fight would no doubt take place in jolly old England again, because of Hatton’s huge popularity there, but I have a feeling that the large crowd would have little effect on Tszyu’s performance.

Naturally, a neutral referee would have to be used this time out, because there’s no way that Hatton should be allowed to wrestle, hold and foul as much as he did last time out without being warned, penalized and perhaps disqualified if he persisted in his non-boxing type fighting.

Without the ability to hold and wrestle Tszyu this time out, I think Hatton would be in deep trouble, like a fish out of water. Hatton would charge Tszyu in the same manner that Ricky did both Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Pacquiao in their fights, ignoring whichever trainer that has the misfortune of trying to guide Hatton in the fight, and eating a lot of leather from the ring rusty Tszyu.

The obvious game plan to fight an opponent as old and as inactive as Tszyu would be to stay away from him in the first three rounds while Kostya is at this strongest and then go after him in the later rounds when Tszyu tires out.

Hatton being who he is, would likely ignore pre-fight instructions given to him by his trainer, and decide to bum rush Tszyu immediately in the 1st round and end up getting flattened by a right hand from Tszyu. Hatton would get up and continue fighting, probably stubbornly sticking to aggressive forward attack and get knocked down a couple of more times.

Depending on who the referee is, the fight would be allowed to continue until Tszyu knocks Hatton cold with a short right hook to the head, sending Hatton pitching forward face first on the canvas. The fight would then be stopped immediately with Tszyu being given the victory.

For Hatton, it would likely be the end for him. There would no point in continuing on after such a terrible knockout. I do think that Hatton would continue fighting on after retirement, likely coming back after a year or two to fight an old timer’s fight against someone old and faded.



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