By Matt Stein: In an interview with 8countnews, Floyd Mayweather Sr. pointed out the reasons why Ricky Hatton was defeated by Manny Pacquiao last Saturday night, saying that “Hatton wasn’t following the game plan” and that things weren’t good for Mayweather Sr., because Hatton was often listening to or training with his assistant trainer Lee Beard much of the time.

It seems as if Beard was also training Hatton when Mayweather Sr. wasn’t around, Floyd says in the interview. Mayweather feels that Beard didn’t train Hatton in the fight way. If it is as Mayweather Sr. says it is, then it’s no wonder that Hatton lost the fight.

Hatton should have been listening to Mayweather Sr., and following his advice rather than an assistant trainer who’s not known for having trained world class athletes like Mayweather Sr. In between the 1st and 2nd rounds in the Pacquiao fight, Hatton could be seen looking over at Beard and listening to his instructions in the corner at the same time Mayweather Sr. was trying to give Hatton instructions.

It seemed a bizarre situation and not a healthy one for either Beard or Mayweather Sr. Ideally, there should only be one person giving the instructions in between rounds, not two or three or whatever. In this case, Hatton or Mayweather Sr. should have stepped up and told Beard to take a seat and let Mayweather Sr. give the instructions to Hatton.

If Ricky was comfortable getting his instructions from an assistant trainer, well then it’s on him. As you can see, it didn’t work out well for Hatton having to voices in the corner. One would hope that if Hatton is going to continue fighting that he either hires Beard as his full time trainer or tells him to take a backseat when Hatton is trying to be trained by someone else, because it’s not really fair for the head trainer to have to compete with an assistant trainer.

That’s a set up that’s doomed for failure, because it not only puts the head trainer in a bad situation, but it also increases the risk of the head trainer and the assistant saying opposite things to Hatton. It would be then up to Hatton to determine which one he’s going to listen to.

Judging from Hatton’s performance against Pacquiao last weekend, it doesn’t appear that Hatton was listening to Mayweather Sr. at all, because he didn’t appear to follow any of his advice about defending himself.

I’m not sure what Beard’s main job was previously when Billy Graham was Hatton’s main trainer, but I thought he was more of a new arrival to Hatton’s camp, because I hadn’t seen him before until Hatton’s fight with Juan Lazcano. In that situation, I saw Beard holding the dummy pads and letting Hatton pound away at his body.

It would seem like a bad move if Hatton tuned Mayweather Sr. out for Beard, given Mayweather’s much more extensive experience with world class athletes. Hopefully, Hatton makes up his mind about whom he wants to be trained by, because I think it’s not helpful to have two trainers going in opposite directions with each other.

In that case, Hatton would have been better off letting one of them go and then following the training of the one that Hatton had the more respect for.