By Manuel Perez: Sometimes it doesn’t matter when a fighter loses, because in some cases they still remain the more interesting fighter to watch. I think this applies for Ricky Hatton in his 2nd round loss to Manny Pacquiao. Although Pacquiao ended up knocking Hatton down three times in the fight, it was Hatton who was the one getting all the attention because he was coming forward, trying to make the fight and winding up with big swings each time. I don’t know, I guess you could tie it in with having the Arturo Gatti type style that makes Hatton so appealing.

Hatton comes forward at all times, ripping off left and right hooks and trying his best to beat his opponent into the canvas. Most of the time he’s successful, but in some occasions, like Hatton is fighting an opponent with fast hand, Ricky has his problems.

You’d think that Pacquiao would be equally if not more exciting to watch than Hatton because Pacquiao has been on a winning streak since being defeated by Erik Morales in 2005, but for some reason Pacquiao doesn’t nearly come across as entertaining as Hatton is in my book.

Maybe it’s Pacquaio’s awkward style of fighting or the fact that he likes to hit and run often, but whatever the case may be, Pacquiao simply isn’t in the same ballpark as Hatton is in terms of being interesting to watch. It matters little that Pacquiao beat Hatton, because this is about styles, charisma and a blend of power. Take for instance Alfonso Gomez, a decent welterweight.

While Gomez is in no way as talented as Pacquiao in terms of overall boxing ability and ring record, I think Gomez is a much more interesting fighter to watch than Pacquiao on any day. You can pick any fight you want of Pacquiao and match them up with Gomez, and I’d be willing to bet that Gomez would come out the winner each time for being the more crowd pleasing fighter. The same argument applies to Urban Antillon, although to a slightly lesser extent than Gomez.

Whatever it is, Pacquiao seems to be missing the crucial ingredient that makes him as exciting as Hatton, Gomez or Antillon. I think one of the factors that make Hatton and the others more interesting is that they take a lot of shots while fighting and keep coming forward despite the punishment that they’re absorbing.

It’s far less appealing to watch a fighter that is dishing out all the punishment and not getting hit in return. To me, that’s really boring and like watching a fighter pound on a defenseless heavy bag for 12 rounds. I’ve seen Pacquiao take some punishment in fights with Juan Manuel Marquez and Erik Morales in the 1st fight and Pacquiao didn’t seem to respond well when getting beaten up a little.

It seemed like he didn’t like getting hit, perhaps because he wasn’t used to it. In each case, Pacquiao would resort to his jumping to the outside to escape the punishment. In doing so, he made himself less interesting to watch because he didn’t want to stay in the pocket and trade with Marquez and Morales.

In the Hatton fight, we didn’t get a chance to see how Pacquiao would respond to taking punishment because the fight was over so quickly. However, in the two rounds of the fight Hatton looked to be the one that was bringing all the drama and interest in the fight by trudging ahead no matter what slings and arrows he was facing.

Hatton didn’t care about defense and was single-mindedly focused on trying to get to Pacquiao so that he could knock the Filipino out. For that reason, I think that Hatton is a much more interesting fighter to watch than Pacquiao will likely ever be.