By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBA World welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko (32-1, 21 KO’s) is going to be really up against it on Saturday night in facing Ricky Hatton (45-2, 32 KO’s) in front of 20,000 Brits at the Manchester Arena, in England.

Senchenko is already coming off of a 9th round TKO loss in his last fight, and there’s little doubt that Hatton is going to be looking to wear him out on the inside with his body attacks and wrestling. Senchenko has that Eastern European fighting style which has little inside fighting skills.

He’s not well versed in fighting in close and he’s going to be badly out of his element in that regard against the short 5’7″ Hatton. As it is, Hatton is going to be trying to score a knock as fast as possible in order to please his loyal British fans. It’s been ages since Hatton last fought and he’s going to be trying to make up for lost time.

This in turn will leave a lot of openings for Senchenko to capitalize by having opportunities to land his head shots. It’s still too early to tell whether Hatton can take a hard head shot or not, because he was knocked out badly in his last fight against Manny Pacquiao. Sometimes a fighter loses his chin after getting knocked out badly. It also doesn’t help that Hatton hasn’t fought in over 3 years. When you don’t get hit for a long, long time oftentimes fighters lose their ability to take punishment. This is where Senchenko will have a chance to win.

Hatton’s power may still be there from earlier in his career depending on how weight drained he is from having lost 70 pounds of fat to get down to 147. But if his power is still there he’s going to be a problem for Senchenko. This is why Senchenko needs to come out blasting on Hatton in the first couple of rounds to try and take him quickly before he’s able to land his own big shots. I don’t think Senchenko will be able to take a lot of punishment in this fight, especially to the body because he’s never really faced a body puncher like Hatton.