Hatton’s weight loss will hurt him against Senchenko

By Boxing News - 10/10/2012 - Comments

Image: Hatton's weight loss will hurt him against SenchenkoBy Scott Gilfoid: In looking at all that weight that former two division world champion Ricky Hatton (45-2, 32 KO’s) gained and recently took off for his scheduled November 24th fight with Vyacheslav Senchenko (32-1, 21 KO’s) in Manchester, I’d say there’s a better than average chance that Hatton is going to be a lot weaker than he once was in the prime of his career.

But more than that all that blubber that Hatton took off, which has to be well into the 40 to 50 pound range, is going to hurt him by likely making him more susceptible to getting hurt in the future when he takes big shots. Senchenko isn’t much of a puncher, but he hits plenty hard if compared to some of the tiny tots that Hatton fought while at light welterweight.

Senchenko has the power to KO Hatton with a single shot if his face can hold together long enough to land his punches. That’s the whole thing for this fight. If Senchenko doesn’t bruise or cut up early against the 33-year-old Hatton, he’ll be in a good position to knock a weight drained Hatton out on November 24th.

I don’t know of too many fighters that have left the game and put on a mess of fat and then were able to to lose the fight and make a successful comeback. As far as I can tell, George Foreman is the only one that was able to do this, and he never could take off all that weight. He did take it off for one of his fights during the start of his comeback, but he quickly put on a bunch of weight after noticing how his power wasn’t the same.

Hatton can’t do that without fighting at middleweight, and that would be a disaster if he tried to fight in that division. The way Hatton looks now, he’s not going to go far in his comeback. He looks too thin and already over-trained with still well over a month to go before his fight with Senchenko.

Fighters that turn fat like Hatton are asking for trouble by taking off that weight and trying to stage a comeback. I’m sure he’s scouted Senchenko out well and see him as a harmless fighter, but I do agree with that. But as average as Senchenko is, I still rate him a better fighter than Hatton at this point. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Senchenko could have beaten a prime Hatton if he didn’t have to worry about Hatton wrestling him all night long.



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