In one of the most one-sided fights you’ll ever see in your life, unbeaten Mexican Saul Alvarez won a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision over British fighter Matthew Hatton to capture the vacant WBC junior middleweight title at the Honda Center, in Anaheim, California. The final judges’ scores were 119-108, 119-108 and 119-108. Hatton can now go back to fighting at the Euro level after failing to win the WBC belt. Alvarez wasn’t impressive either. I can see him getting beaten by a lot of the top contenders in the division. Look for him to milk the title for awhile and then vacate before he faces someone that can beat him. This was a sickening fight to watch. Hatton never had a chance.
Despite the talk of the fight not going ahead if Saul Alvarez came in at 160 after re-hydrating, the fight went on as scheduled with Alvarez weighing a reported 165, which was 15 pounds over the 150 catchweight that Hatton and Alvarez agreed on for the fight.
Round 1: Alvarez pounding Hatton with jabs, putting pressure on the British fighter. Alvarez hooks to the body hard. Hatton looking like a scared rabbit, not wanting to get hit or exchange. Hatton finally landed a decent right hand but continued to get backed up and pounded by the much stronger Alvarez.
Round 2: Hatton’s nose is already bleeding from Alvarez’s hard right hands. Alvarez pressuring and landing nice combinations to the head of Hatton, and pushing him with body shots. Hatton fighting on the outside and trying to throw fast punches, ala Amir Khan. The slaps have no effect on Alvarez, who keeps coming forward as if he’s fighting a featherweight instead of a pumped up Euro level welterweight. Neither fighter looks particularly good at this point. Alvarez looks slow and sluggish, while Hatton looked weak, mediocre and slow as molasses. Alvarez hurts Hatton with a combination to the head followed by a left hook that has Hatton in trouble and holding on. At this point, Hatton looks way out of his class and doesn’t appear that he’ll last too much longer.
Round 3: Alvarez comes out looking strong as ox, jabbing Hatton to the head and giving him whiplash with each shot. Hatton still trying to run but not able to escape the younger Mexican. Alvarez stops Hatton in his tracks at one point with a jab that shook Hatton’s entire body as if it were going through convulsions. This is sickening to watch. Hatton looks like a 3rd tier fighter facing a top tier guy. Alvarez knocks Hatton to the ropes and finishes the round with a hard combo that connects cleanly to Hatton’s grill.
Round 4: Alvarez walking through Hatton’s ineffectual jabs and focusing on making contract with big power shots. Hatton has no power on his shots and looks like he left his best in the gym. Alvarez hurts Hatton with a left hook to the midsection. Hatton trying to scurry away and not having any luck. Hatton doesn’t like the body shots and is trying to clinch near the end of the round. Alvarez still blasting Hatton’s reddening face.
Round 5: Alvarez continuing to pressure the weakening Hatton and blasting him with jabs and hooks. Hatton galloping around the ring and looking horrible. It’s all Alvarez now as tags Hatton at will with uppercuts, right hands and left hooks, mixing shots from body to head. Hatton is worse than sparring partner. He looks like a big white punching bag. Hatton trying his best to protect his reddening head and face but having little luck in trying to block all the incoming from Alvarez.
Round 6: Hatton desperately throwing shots and missing by a mile. He’s fighting like a man with poor eyesight. Alvarez walking through the few shots that Hatton is landing and tagging Hatton with a continuous bombardment of power shots. Hatton backed up to the corner and despartely throws a nice leaping left hook that looks a lot like the type that his brother used to throw. Alvarez fires back with a hook of his own shuts Hatton down. Hatton showing heart but lacking power and looking as average as they come. Still can’t believe this guy got the fight. I can pick out at least 20 better fighters at the top of my head in the junior middleweight division compared to this guy.
Round 7: Hatton continuing to get nailed with big shots. He’s throwing and landing more in this round, but throwing weak arm shots that have no effect on Alvarez. Hatton hit on the break. Alvarez losses a point because of it. Hatton looks hurt, taking shots and getting tagged. Hatton trying his best to block all the incoming but doing a terrible job at it. Hatton got hit an awful lot in that round. His corner needs to stop the fight. He;s just too mediocre to do much with Alvarez.
Round 8: Alvarez landing left hooks and right hand, mixing up the angles of his shots. Alvarez red-faced and blowing hard. He looks tired, but Hatton is too limited to do anything about it. Hatton landing shots but with no power. He looks weak even for a welterweight. Alvarez continues to land some big left hooks after a rest break during a clinch. Alvarez looks incapable of fighting hard for an entire round without needing to take breaks and gasping for air. For a 20-year-old, he looks as old as the hills.
Round 9: Alvarez comes out landing nice hooks to the bald head of Hatton, but losing steam on his shots. Hatton trying the old Ricky wrestling bit on the inside. He’s not nearly as good at wrestling as Ricky, and the referee is having none of the wrestling gimmicks and breaks it up. Hatton getting hit with some really huge shots and showing a great earth.
Round 10: Alvarez pouring in even more hooks in this round and catching Hatton cleanly. Hatton fires back one of his own hooks but it has no effect. Hatton trying to hit while holding but Alvarez is really lighting him up with short punches. Hatton flops down on the canvas after getting hit with a low blow. Hatton really milking it for all he’s worth. Looks like he’s hoping for Alvarez to be disqualified or docked more points. In all, Hatton stays down for almost a half a minute, resting and looking like a beaten fighter. I almost died laughing watching that drama. Hatton looking like an actor all the way.
Round 11: Alvarez coming forward landing power shots. Hatton looking like a little rabbit that’s been kicked around for 10 rounds. Hatton tries to clinching but Alvarez having none of it and continues to beat up the Brit in the clinch. This is great stuff. Alvarez lands a beautiful triple hook. Hatton despairingly lunching forward to clinch rather than punch. It looks like an amateur that was pulled from a bar stool. Hatton throwing very little in this round and the ones he does throw are blocked. Hatton looks like a white punching bag in this round. I take that back. Hatton looks like a pink punching bag. I still can’t believe this limited guy is fighting for a title. He looks bad even for an EBU champion.
Round 12: Alvarez comes out looking for a knockout. He’s almost business as he calmly tags the beaten up Hatton with one big hook after another. Hatton hurt by a left hand. Getting nailed by shots to the body and looking like he’s ready to drop. Hatton trying to maul on the inside. Alvarez greets him with several huge shots to the head to peel Hatton off of him. Hatton firing back punches but his arms are like wet noodles, lacking power.
All in all, terrible fight. Alvarez looked horrible, not nearly as good as some of the other top contenders like Erislandy Lara, Kermit Cintron, Vanes Martirosyan and Alfredo Angulo, to name just a small handful. Good thing it was Hatton he was in there with. Hatton looked like a 3rd tier fighter at the twilight of his career. Just awful to watch him.
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