By Scott Gilfoid: In the matter of months, Ricky Hatton has gone from being considered as the best fighter in the light welterweight division to a fighter that is considered by many to be shot or at the very least overrated. What gets me is that boxing fans are ready to throw out a label like “shot” based on two defeats – Hatton’s losses to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
But I’m not so sure that Hatton really is a shot fighter. How can Hatton go from being a pound-for-pound candidate to that of a fighter who is considered to be shot almost over night after a knockout loss to Pacquiao?
A more logical explanation for Hatton’s two recent losses to Mayweather and Pacquiao is that Hatton wasn’t what many people thought he was. It isn’t as if the warning signs weren’t already there in Hatton’s past fights. Just look at the facts. In Hatton’s best fight, an 11th round TKO victory over a weight drained 36-year-old Kostya Tszyu, in 2005, Ricky had to struggle to get the win.
This was no dominating performance by any stretch of the imagination. Hatton had to dig deep to beat Tszyu, who was at the very end of his career and probably fighting at 60% of his former ability by that point in his career.
Even then, Hatton needed a lot of wrestling, holding and hitting to get the win. It wasn’t a pretty fight. Certainly, if Hatton was as great as people think he is he should have been able to dominate an old fighter like Tszyu who was on his last leg.
Then take, for instance, Hatton’s 12-round decision win over Luis Collazo in May 2006. Hatton looked horrible in that fight, losing a lot of rounds and getting staggered by the light-hitting Collazo in the 12th round. Hatton ended up winning the fight by a narrow 12-round decision to capture Collazo’s WBA welterweight title, but many people felt that the less popular Collazo really won the fight.
Even if Hatton did win the fight by a narrow margin, what does that tell you about Hatton that he had to struggle to beat a fighter like Collazo. No offense to Collazo, but he’s not the best fighter in the welterweight division.
And more importantly, if Hatton is pound for pound star, what is he doing struggling with a fighter like Collazo? Hatton should have been able to beat him easily, right? If you’re one of the best fighters in boxing, you don’t struggle with Collazo, get hurt and win by a questionable decision.
Hatton took things easy after that fight, taking on Juan Urango and an old Jose Luis Castillo. Naturally, Hatton won the fights but those aren’t the kinds of opponents that can really prove anything of Hatton other than he can beat good fighters.
Just by looking at Hatton’s struggles against Tszyu and Collazo, is it any wonder that Hatton would be destroyed by a world class fighter like Floyd Mayweather Jr.? Hatton losing badly to Mayweather seems like a forgone conclusion to me.
And the fact that Hatton had to struggle to defeat Juan Lazcano is also very telling. This is someone that Hatton should have been able to beat with ease if he really was as good as people think he is. Does anyone think that a fighter like Mayweather, Juan Manuel Marquez or Manny Pacquiao would struggle to defeat Lazcano?
Hatton’s loss to Pacquiao shouldn’t have been a surprise either, even though Hatton was the naturally bigger guy. The past pretty much told you all you need to know about Hatton going into that fight. You look at his fights against Tszyu, Collazo, Mayweather and Lazcano, and you can only come to one conclusion about Hatton’s chances against a quality fighter like Pacquiao – Hatton’s going to get drilled. Sure enough, to no surprise Pacquiao destroyed Hatton.
So when people say that Hatton is a shot fighter, I don’t agree with them. I just think he was never that good to begin. But in this case, it doesn’t really matter that he wasn’t a super talented fighter, because Hatton’s seen as an Arturo Gatti-like fighter.
Gatti would do well in certain fights when matched carefully, but when he would be put in with world class fighters like Oscar De La Hoya and Mayweather, Gatti would end up getting destroyed. It’s the same thing with Hatton.
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