By Scott Gilfoid: There are legions of Ricky Hatton fans who really enjoy his fights and feel that he deserves to be considered as an all time great in the sport of boxing. But I’m not so sure about that. While I think Hatton is or was certainly a good fighter during his prime years, I don’t know that he was ever a great fighter. I think mostly that Hatton was a popular fighter in England, who had an entire country behind him much in the same way that Pacquiao has the entire Philippines behind him every time he fights. I don’t see any greatness in any of Hatton’s fights, and more importantly I see a lot of fighters that Hatton for some reason never fought.
Hatton often says he owes his success to “Me fans,” but that just makes me think that Hatton was a popular guy, but not someone who actually beat a ton of top fighters to prove that he was worthy of the tons of praise that was poured over his head day in day out. Come on, let’s look at all the fighters for some reason that Hatton chose not to fight: Timothy Bradley, Junior Witter, Amir Khan, Victor Ortiz, Devon Alexander, Ricardo Torres, Kendal Holt, Miguel Cotto, Marcos Maidana and Randall Bailey.
This is just a short list, of course, because there’s other fighters that Hatton didn’t fight and who would have been better opponents, in my view, than the ones that he ended up fighting.
Let’s look at who Hatton did fight as far as his biggest fights:
Floyd Mayweather – top notch
Manny Pacquiao – top notch
Kostya Tszyu – old, weight drained and fighting in Hatton’s home arena
Paulie Malignaggi – weak, no power and over his head
Jose Luis Castillo – old, small former lightweight champion
Juan Urango – terribly slow
Luis Collazo – a good fighter, but not in the class of a Bradley or Alexander
I think Hatton did well in his career by fighting Mayweather and Pacquiao, but the fact of the matter is, Hatton lost to both of those guys. And his other wins over Castillo, Urango, Tszyu, Malignaggi and Collazo aren’t that impressive to me considering that I see them all as flawed or in the case of Tszyu, old, weight drained and fighting in Hatton’s own arena despite the fact that Tszyu was the champion at the time. I actually think that Hatton should have had points taken away from him for the wrestling he did in his win over Tszyu.
But it’s the guys that Hatton didn’t fight that makes me think of him as merely a popular fighter and not a great one. Bradley has been a top fighter for three years now, and there’s no excuse for Hatton not fighting him during this time. Why fight Malignaggi, a weak puncher, when Bradley or Alexander was available. And why didn’t Hatton fight Junior Witter? I don’t understand that at all, and it just makes me think he ducked him. That’s a guy that should have fought ages ago. I know it would have been hard and that Hatton might have lost, but I’m thinking this is a guy that Hatton should have gotten out of the way.
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