By William Mackay: European Boxing Union (EBU) welterweight champion Matthew Hatton (39-4-2, 15 KO’s) will be making his first defense of his EBU title against former WBA welterweight champion Ukrainian Yuriy Nuzhnenko (30-1-1, 14 KO’s) on Friday, July 16th at the Bolton Arena, Bolton, Lanhashire, England.
Hatton, 29, the younger brother of boxer Ricky Hatton, is hoping to win this fight and possibly get a title shot against one of the welterweight champions. However, Hatton could find himself getting tripped up by the 34-year-old Nuzhnenko, if the Ukrainian doesn’t take himself out of the fight by clashing heads with Hatton one time too many.
Hatton, ranked #15 by the WBA, would likely have a lot of problems if he were to fight WBA champion Vyacheslav Senchenko, who is a pure boxer with excellent skill. Senchenko already has a win over Nuzhnenko back in April 2009.
But Hatton would likely be even easier for Senchenko, because Hatton moves slowly and doesn’t have a lot of speed or power to speak of. However, it’s very questionable whether Hatton can even get by Nuzhnenko on July 16th.
Hatton has beaten some European opposition in the past couple of years, but I wouldrate Nuzhnenko over all of them by a notch or two. He’s a more complete fighter then the opponents that Hatton has been matched against as of late.
Although Nuzhnenko doesn’t have a lot of power or speed, he’s a very technical fighter and one that you have to really box if you wan to beat him. Hatton likes to box, but he also makes the mistake of trying to slug like his older brother Ricky and because of that he gets nailed a lot by big shots.
I think Matthew is going to give Nuzhnenko a lot of opportunities to land his punches and its going to be hard for Hatton to do much without paying a stiff price every time. Hatton was easily beaten by Craig Watson back in May 2008 in a one-sided 12 round decision loss where Hatton got schooled badly the entire fight.
Hatton has been kept away from skillful boxers since then and has won six of seven fights with one of them, against Lovemore N’Dou, ending in a 12 round draw in November 2009.
There’s talk of Hatton possibly fighting Saul Alvarez in September if he can win the fight against Nuzhnenko. I think that’s a really bad idea. I don’t think highly of Alvarez’s skills, but he can punch a little with his right hand and probably hard enough to wreck Hatton’s world and send him back to fighting Euro opposition in the safety of the UK.
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