Hatton was too slow, too weak and too limited

By William Mackay: Matthew Hatton (41-5-2, 16 KO’s) failed big time to try and capture the vacant WBC junior middleweight title last Saturday night against unbeaten hard hitting Mexican Saul Alvarez (36-0-1, 25 KO’s) at the Honda Center, in Anaheim, California.

Pretty much the entire boxing world gave Hatton no chance at beating the 20-year-old Alvarez, remarking that the British fighter didn’t have the power, hand speed or the boxing ability to pull off an upset. And sure enough, the fans were right. Hatton was far too weak, slow and ultimately limited to beat the much younger Alvarez. The judges’ scores told the entire story. Alvarez won the fight by the scores of 119-108, 119-108 and 119-108.

It didn’t matter what Hatton tried to do in the fight, Alvarez was always one step ahead of him. Alvarez methodically battered Hatton from the 1st round until the end of the fight in the 12th, nailing him with hooks, uppercuts and powerful body shots. It painful to watch Hatton stumble around take punishment.

Hatton tried to fight back in each round, but Alvarez easily blocked most of Hatton’s efforts to land and the ones that did land were far too weak to trouble Alvarez any. In terms of size, Hatton looked about the same size as Alvarez give or take 10 pounds.

However, Hatton’s size didn’t translate into meaningful power. He fought like he was incredibly weak for some reason. His lack of hand speed didn’t help matters any. Alvarez was free to load up on every shot and pound Hatton without worrying about taking any big shots. The fight was one-sided from start to finish, as Hatton couldn’t do anything despite trying.

It was like watching a younger brother take a much stronger older brother. Hatton just got beat up and couldn’t really do anything.

Having failed to capture the WBC title, Hatton will now move back down to welterweight and presumably pick up where he left off fighting European fighters without much talent. Hatton does well at that level.

For his part, Alvarez has some big decisions to make. He looked okay against Hatton, but there are much better fighters in the division that Alvarez might do well to avoid until he improves his many flaws. Beating up on Hatton is one thing but facing someone like James Kirkland or Alfredo Angulo might be a step too far for Alvarez at this point. He could find himself taking a Hatton-like beating against those fighters.