By Chris Williams: Since defeating Ricky Hatton by a blowout 2nd round KO last Saturday night, Manny Pacquiao has been crowned as the top fighter in boxing for his quick win over the British fighter. However, an argument could be made that Pacquiao’s win wasn’t all that spectacular given the crude way that Hatton fought in the bout. Hatton, 30, showed little in the way of technique in the opening round, as Hatton blindly bum rushed Pacquiao from the opening moments of the fight and tried to steam roller Pacquiao.
It looked as if Hatton was having a flashback of his fight with Kostya Tszyu, because that’s how he seemed to be trying to fight Pacquiao. Instead of using his jab, head movement and angles, Hatton attempted to get in close and grab Pacquiao at every opportunity.
You would think that after Hatton’s 10th round TKO loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2007 that Ricky would know that this kind of crude fighting doesn’t work against better fighters. It may have worked in the past against many of Hatton’s other opponents and against a 36-year-old Tszyu, but not against a younger fighter with talent.
Hatton’s trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr, could see that Ricky had major problems with his defense, which is why he was trying to wean Hatton away from all the clinching, wrestling and wide open fighting that he had been doing for his entire career.
But Hatton looks like he wasn’t able to grasp the methods that Mayweather Sr. was trying to teach him. If Hatton did, he certainly didn’t show it against Pacquiao.
I’d like to give Pacquiao more credit for his victory over Hatton, but honestly, the way that Ricky fought on that night pretty much any halfway decent top level fighter would have done the same thing to him that Pacquiao did. This is why it seems to nutty that Hatton couldn’t see that he would get destroyed if he continued to use his primitive caveman fighting style against a fighter like Pacquiao.
I don’t know what got into Hatton. Maybe he was sitting down and watching old video of him beating one of his soft opponents earlier in his career, but whatever the case, he sure didn’t use his head against Pacquiao except to try and block punches. Hatton looked like a fighter out of the 1950s with his crude style of fighting.
That kind of style may work in Britain against the local fighters, but not against world class athletes like Pacquiao. Things change when a fighter steps up in class and they have to adapt for that kind of situation. Hatton showed no ability to change and learn from his past mistakes.
Instead, Hatton did all the usual dumb things he does, mindlessly rushing forward with his hands down and getting tagged by Pacquiao on the way in. With all the sparring that Hatton did for this fight, you’d think that he’d be smart enough to know that he needs to keep his guard up when attacking or that he needs to use his jab. However, Hatton seemed to have forgotten all of that in his fight with Pacquiao.
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