By Scott Gilfoid: I have a bad feeling about this fight after seeing how painfully thin Ricky Hatton looked at yesterday’s weigh-in with Manny Pacquiao for their clash tonight at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hatton weighed 140 on the dot, and he looked like a Jenny Craig diet survivor, emaciating looking. By appearances, I’d guess that Hatton was 40-years-old at the weigh-in, because the weight loss has given him a perfect old man look to him. I hope for his sake that he can put some weight back on through re-hydration before the fight.
Hatton was saying how strong he feels and other such boasts that I found hard to believe from looking at his sickly appearance. Hatton looked like the skinny kid in the Charles Atlas commercial who had sand kicked in his face. I’ve never seen Hatton look so thin before and I think he’s made a terrible mistake by over-training for the fight. Right now, I don’t think Hatton could beat anyone, much less Pacquiao. Hatton threw a few punches in the air and looked weak. He’s not going to win. I can’t believe he’s made the same mistake that De La Hoya did by going overboard with the dieting and training. Oh well.
Usually when a fighter looks as thin as Hatton, it tells me that they ballooned up too high in weight between fights and then had to diet and do a lot of aerobic conditioning to take off all the blubber. It certainly works well, but the fighter is often too weak to fight effectively.
Judging by the emaciated way that Hatton looked at the weigh-in, I expect him to put in an Oscar De La Hoyaesque type performance against Pacquiao and quickly run out of gas, take severe punishment and probably quit on his stool to save himself from taking further punches.
The closest thing that I can compare Hatton to is a combination of De La Hoya and Erik Morales in his second fight with Pacquiao. I don’t know what happened with Hatton but it looks as if he waited too long to strip off the remaining fat from his body and now he’s done it by stripping off muscle.
I hope he’s not sorry for it tonight, because Hatton will be likely be beaten into retirement by Pacquiao if things don’t go right for the British light welterweight. This is a fight that Hatton can’t afford to lose, because if he can beat Pacquiao, Hatton will not only get a lot of credit in the boxing community, but he’d be showered with riches from endorsements of all kinds.
Heck, Hatton would probably end up on a box of Wheaties and get a trip to Disneyland. Even better than that, Hatton would possibly get the rematch that he’s been so craving for long by having Floyd Mayweather Jr. meet him in the ring for a good grudge match.
Mayweather already beat Hatton previously in 2007, but the fight was mired by an over eager referee, who basically pulled Hatton off of Mayweather at even a hint of any inside fighting. This allowed Mayweather to calmly pick Hatton apart from the outside and inside without having to worry about wrestling him.
The best part would be that Hatton would get tons of cash for the fight, and that’s why Hatton has to pray that he can beat Pacquiao. I really don’t like the way that Hatton looks, though, with his stripping down to get to 140. Pacquiao looked the same as usual, just a wiry fighter with a lot of hand speed. But, Hatton looks as if he went a step too far in taking the weight off.
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