By Sean McDaniel: If nothing else, Matthew Hatton (41-4-2, 16 KO’s) is confident about his chances of beating undefeated Mexican slugger Saul Alvarez (35-0-1, 26 KO’s) this Saturday night at the Honda Center, in Anaheim, California. Hatton, 29, is a huge underdog in this fight despite being nine years older than the 20-year-old Alvarez. But in this case, Hatton’s age is meaningless because Alvarez can punch like a mule with either hand and Hatton doesn’t have the armament to trade with Alvarez for long.
Winning a decision is about the only chance Hatton has to win this fight, and for him to do that, he’s going to have to move a lot, stay out of the way of Alvarez’s big shots, and keep hitting him with jabs. I wouldn’t suggest that Hatton try and land anything other than jabs because for him to throw power shots, it’s going to mean that he’s going to get countered a lot. Hatton won’t last long with alvarez landing howitzer-like counter punches. The guy hits way too hard and Hatton is seemingly too fragile for him to get hit all that often without biting the dust.
In their recent press conference, Hatton said “I hope everyone doesn’t get too upset when I beat him on the 5th of March.”
Hatton sounds like he’s whistling past the graveyard here, because few boxing fans are giving him any chance of beating the hard hitting Alvarez. Even Hatton’s own fans are predicting that he’ll be knocked out by the powerful Alvarez. Hatton does have a chance in this fight, but he’s going to have to be running on all eight cylinders if he wants to get the win. It will take the very best possible performance from Hatton to walk out of this fight on Saturday in one piece and with the WBC belt in his possession. The first thing that he’ll need to win is for his chin to hold up under the serious pounding that Alvarez is going to be inflicting upon him in this fight.
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