By William Mackay: Ricky Hatton had a variety of excuses to give for his loss to Manny Pacquiao in May. In article at the Sportinglife, Hatton says “It was only in my previous fight a few months earlier that I put in one of my best performances against Malignaggi. All of a sudden they think I’m past it in the next five months. That wasn’t the case – it was a case of just being a little bit over-trained and I was walking to the ring that night like a man going to the gallows.” Hatton was knocked cold by Pacquiao in a 2nd round stoppage on May 2nd, 2009.

It’s hard to agree with Hatton about whether over-training was the reason he lost to Pacquiao, because Hatton was in trouble in the opening moments of the fight after walking into a hard shot by Pacquiao and getting put down. Hatton would later get knocked down a second time late in the round. From my vantage point, it appeared that Hatton was getting tagged because of his defensive lapses rather than being over-trained.

Hatton was going after Pacquiao in a wide open manner that made it easy for Pacquiao to pick him off with big shots as Hatton was coming in. Floyd Mayweather Sr. had been working with Hatton to be more defensive, trying to get him to move his head and cover up more.

This training didn’t seem to have any effect on Hatton, because he fought pretty much as he always does by rushing out and trying to slug with Pacquiao. If the fight had gone longer, then I can see an issue of over-training being a problem. However, Hatton’s loss to Pacquiao seemed to me a result of Hatton’s bad tactics rather than his over training.

Hatton says “I was down on weight very early, I was sparring a lot earlier than normal and consequently I peaked too soon. Where I should have taken my foot off the gas and had a bit of a rest, my trainer put my foot on the gas and in the end it burned me.” Again, I think this would have been an issue for Hatton had the fight gone into the middle or late rounds of the fight where his conditioning could have become an issue.

But for a fight where Hatton was in deep trouble from the opening round, I can’t see his diet or training being the issue here. Hatton just seemed to use too crude of an attacking style on Pacquiao for this fight. He needed to be more tactical, more strategic and less of a brawler. Pacquiao was well trained by Freddie Roach, his coach, and seemed to know exactly what Hatton would do in the fight. The leaping left hooks were something that Hatton should have stayed away from, and he needed to move his head and stay more on the outside against the faster Pacquiao.

“I don’t think Manny Pacquiao beat me at my best that night and that’s what is making me come back,” Hatton says. The only way for Hatton to know for sure whether it was a case of him over-training is for him to be smarter in his next training camp and take things slower. He’s got to take enough weight before the training camp starts so that his camp isn’t a fat farm for him to take off weight. Hatton needs to strip off the lard before he gets to camp, because I can see this being another excuse if he ends up getting stopped in his next fight.