By Charles Brun: It’s been 13 years since Ricky Hatton was knocked out in the 10th round by Floyd Mayweather Jr on December 8, 2007, and he’s still bitter about the defeat. Hatton (45-3, 32 K.O.s) can’t quite come to terms with what happened to him that night.
Ricky says he feels “Cheated” from his experience against Mayweather because the referee kept pulling him apart when he attempted to work inside.
Hatton is still trying to make sense of what happened to him on the night against Floyd Jr over a decade ago. What’s unclear is why Hatton is seemingly obsessed with the Mayweather fight, and not focused on his knockout losses to Manny Pacquiao and Vyacheslav Senchenko.
Those are the contests that Hatton should be thinking about because he looked ill-prepared.
Hatton upset with the referee
Ricky blames the referee Joe Cortez for him not allowing him to maul on the inside, and wrestle like he usually had done in his fights. Cortez wasn’t going to let Mayweather and Hatton wrestle all night long what we’d seen from Ricky in his battle against Kostya Tszyu in 2005.
“I did give him a good run for his money,” Hatton said to BT Sport about his match against Mayweather. “I feel a little bit cheated to be honest with you because I felt that I wasn’t going to outbox him and I wasn’t going to out-speed him.”
Cortez did what he had to do to keep the Mayweather-Hatton fight winding up as an ugly clench-fest and of prolonged wrestling. What Hatton might not realize is the U.S., the referees tend to separate fighters when they see prolonged grappling.
Perhaps it’s a different story in other parts of the world, but in the U.S., the referees split the fighters when they see wrestling. What Hatton’s mistake was, he didn’t prepare for the type of fight that was expected of him in traveling to Las Vegas to face Floyd.
Hatton likely assumed that he could wrestle Mayweather all night long as he did with Kostya Tszyu, and wear him down just with the wrestling.
Ricky got away with a lot of stuff against Tszyu
The Tszyu vs. Hatton fight didn’t look like a boxing match and that one of the criticisms that boxing fans had afterward. It was pure shoving, pushing holding for prolonged periods by Hatton.
Hatton-Tszyu was like a standing wrestling match in which Hatton work arm free and hammer Tszyu in between the prolonged grappling. It was so annoying and frustrating to watch the fight round after round played out in that fashion.
The referee Dave Parris that worked the Tszyu-Hatton fight, let the two grapple for prolonged periods without separating them.
In the end, Tszyu got worn out from the grappling, which the referee allowed, rather than the fighting. When the two fighters had daylight between them, Tszyu was many levels above Hatton in boxing skills, power, and talent.
After that fight, there was a lot of criticism aimed at Hatton for the wrestling he did from boxing fans. Cortez was a professional in how he controlled his battles, and he wasn’t going to let Hatton turn the struggle into an MMA hybrid or Greco Roman wrestling match the way he wanted it.
Hatton complaining about not being allowed to get inside
“If I was allowed to get close I would definitely throw more punches than him,” continued Hatton on his loss to Mayweather. “But I never got the opportunity and that’s the thing that will always eat away at me – the referee never gave me the opportunity.”
In boxing, you get fighters that get away with a lot of different tactics that should result in them being penalized and disqualified. After a while, those bad habits become ingrained for the fighters.
When that fighter eventually has a referee that doesn’t allow them to use those tactics, be it wrestling, rabbit punches, or low blows, then they have no plan-B. That was the case with Hatton. Once he couldn’t wrestle against Mayweather, his goose was cooked.
Hatton’s grappling should have been addressed by the different referees that worked his fights in the U.K. long before he met up with Mayweather. If they’d properly weaned Hatton from using these MMA tactics, then he might not have been so lost against Mayweather.
You got to blame the referees that didn’t penalize and warn Hatton to stop using these tactics from the earliest point in his career rather than letting him get away with it. If Hatton had quality referees like Cortez working all his previous fights in the U.K., then perhaps his career would have gone better.
Mayweather was ahead of Hatton by the following scores at the time of the knockout in the 10th: 89-81, 89-81, and 88-82.
Ricky says Maidana got away with bullying Floyd
“The one person that was allowed to get stuck in and bully him and was allowed to fight close was Marcos Maidana and he pushed him really close,” said Hatton in sounding bitter.
There was a massive difference between how Maidana fought Mayweather and how Hatton was attempting to. When Maidana was in close, he was throwing punches with both hands at Floyd. Maidana wasn’t trying to wrestle like Hatton.
The reason the referee wasn’t pulling Maidana off Mayweather is that he was throwing punches, staying busy, and using the Marquess of Queensberry rules. Maidana wasn’t trying to turn it into an MMA fight or a Greco Roman wrestling match the way Hatton attempted to do against Mayweather.
The only bullying Maidana did against Mayweather was the huge punches he was throwing at him. He wasn’t trying to maul, shove, or push on him the way Hatton was attempting to do.
If the referee had done his job in the Hatton-Tszyu fight, Hatton would have been either disqualified or penalized repeatedly for his grappling until he stopped using these illegal tactics.
“Castillo was allowed to get close and a lot of people thought Castillo won,” said Hatton. “So I smelt a rat that night with the referee and I don’t think I was given a fair crack of the whip.”
When Jose Luis Castillo got close to Mayweather in their two fights, he was throwing punches, and no trying to wrestle as Hatton did.