Mayweather looking at fighting Hatton, Quintana or Salita – News

By Boxing News - 11/18/2009 - Comments

mayweather45343434By Eric Thomas: According to the latest boxing news, Fight Hype is reporting that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is looking at fighting several different opponents if a fight with Manny Pacquiao can’t be made. The opponents are as follows: Matthew Hatton, Dimitriy Salita and Carlos Quintana. This is somewhat shocking news, because the boxing world has been counting on seeing a fight between Mayweather and World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao.

Apparently, Mayweather is concerned about the time and effort that will be needed to negotiate a fight with Pacquiao, who is considered to be the number #1 fighter in all of boxing at this time by many sports writers and fans. Instead of waiting around and losing out on a lot of wasted time, Mayweather wants to stay busy and fight a tune-up bout in between this time. It would make perfect sense, because Mayweather has already lost two years of his pro career because of his retirement from 2007 to 2009.

Mayweather looked great in beating Juan Manuel Marquez in a lopsided 12 round unanimous in September. However, Mayweather, 32, didn’t get a whole lot of credit for winning the fight because Marquez was moving up in weight from the lightweight division to take the fight and it gave many people the perception that Mayweather was cherry picking fighters from the lower weight classes.

That perception isn’t likely to change much if Mayweather chooses to fight Salita, a light welterweight contender. Salita is unbeaten at 30-0, but his record is almost entirely built up on B and C level fighters rather than from the top tier.

More than that, Salita has a bout in December against World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan, and few, if any, fans feel that Salita will win that fight. Most likely, he’ll be knocked out by Khan and this will automatically eliminate Salita from the running for a bout against Mayweather. Quintana (26-2, 20 KO’s), a former WBO welterweight champion, is also an odd choice for Mayweather.

Quintana has lost two out of his last five fights, both by knockouts. He was stopped in the 1st round by Paul Williams last year in June. Quintana has done little since that time, beating C class fighter Joshua Onyango by a 4th round in October. If Mayweather selects Quintana, he’ll take a lot of heat because of it. However, the choice of Matthew Hatton would appear to be the worst possible opponent that Mayweather could take.

The younger brother of Ricky Hatton, Matthew Hatton has failed to establish himself as a legitimate world class contender in the welterweight division. Hatton was easily defeated by Craig Watson last year in a 12 round decision loss and recently fought to a 21 round draw against Lovemore N’dou on November 13th. Hatton fights nothing like his older brother Ricky, doesn’t have the same kind of power and is more of pure boxer than a slugger.

Matthew Hatton doesn’t have much hand speed and doesn’t have the best of defensive skills. Against Mayweather, Hatton would be way over his head and would likely fold quickly unless Mayweather held him up for 12 rounds to get some rounds in. It wouldn’t make for good viewing and it would be difficult to get excited about this fight, even for a tune-up.



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