By Anthony Coleman: In two weeks will be third anniversary of Hatton’s unexpected victory against Kostya Tszyu for the Junior Welterweight title. Going into their fight most fans and members of the boxing world believed that Hatton was too green to take down a proven pound-for-pound elite like the hard hitting Tszyu.
Yet Hatton survived some very tough moments, and gained a lot of steam as the fight entered the late rounds. In the 11th he ravaged Tszyu and started pounding him to the head and the body. Rather than go out in the last round and keep his crown, a battered and bruised Tszyu decided to quit on his stool.
With his title winning victory, Hatton went from an unproven contender to a world champion overnight. In his next fight, Hatton would reclaim the WBA title that was unfairly stripped from the aforementioned Tszyu by knocking Carlos Maussa the F— out with a left hook in the 9th round. Off the strength of those two victories Hatton had not only busted on to the pound-for-pound scene, but was named “Fighter of the Year” by practically every major boxing publication for 2005. It seemed right at that moment the sky was the limit for Manchester’s finest. But in reality it was his peak and we’ve seen signs of diminishing returns ever since.
In his very next fight, Hatton would challenge for the WBA version of the Welterweight title (which was vacated by Carlos Baldomir) against Luis Collazo. Despite scoring an early knock down, the slick southpaw gave Hatton all he could handle and in the 12th round Collazo would badly stun Hatton. When the cards were read Hatton won a very close and disputed unanimous decision.
Hatton would then take the rest of 2006 off then went back down in weight to defend his junior welterweight crown against Juan Urango. After winning the first 3 rounds Urango would hurt Hatton to the body. After surviving the scare Hatton turned the fight into a very ugly and boring hug, clinch and punch fest. To say the least the modern day “Hitman” looked very flat on his way to winning a unanimous decision. His second fight of 2007 saw him take on former two time Lightweight champion Jose Luis Castillo. Hatton would dominate the fight and eventually scored a fourth round KO when he caught Castillo with a left hook to the liver. However, his win had to be put into proper perspective. Castillo looked terrible in his previous fight, a split decision victory over Herman Ngoudjo and clearly wasn’t the same fighter who arguably defeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. and had the epic war with the late Diego Corrales.
Then in November, Hatton would meet the Welterweight champion and pound-for-pound best fighter in the sport: Floyd Mayweather Jr. Based entirely off those three earlier performances almost everybody (and I mean everybody) picked Hatton as the underdog. Yet while Hatton had some early success, specifically using his mauling style (of course when Joe Cortez wasn’t getting in his face about it); the fight eventually turned into a mismatch as Mayweather began dictating the fight with his movement and counter left hook and right crosses. Finally the fight ended in the tenth round when Hatton lunged in defenseless trying land a left hook. It didn’t land. Mayweather saw the punch coming and countered with his own left hook which connected flush. Hatton was badly hurt and then stumbled head first into the turnbuckle and fell to the ground. While Cortez let Hatton continue, a finishing combination by Mayweather finished him off.
While the loss alone was devastating, it also gave the fans and boxing writers who denounced him reason to gloat as the limitations he showed in his recent previous fights were exposed by Mayweather. While he has fast hands, has good power, is very athletic and strong (at 140 pounds), and works at a high rate; he has also shown an inability to move his head, work behind a high guard, cutting the ring off properly, and he doesn’t work behind a consistent jab. If you are going to be a pressure fighter you damn well better possess some (if not all) of those traits if you are going to make it among the pound-for-pound elite.
Plus he has shown to me that while he is a very strong fighter at 140 (which allows him to maul and grab) it doesn’t carry over to Welterweight so going back to 147 is out of the question. So the question now is that when he steps into the ring against Juan Lazcano on Saturday, will he be able to come back, improve and remain a major force in the sport.
First of all I got to admit that Hatton deserves credit for restarting from the near bottom. While he probably taken refuge on HBO’s Boxing After Dark, he instead decided to go to Boxing’s version of TV Siberia by fighting on the Versus channel. This may mean less pressure as he could work on his skills and make it back to the top without being watched by a huge audience. Yet it must be said that we shouldn’t expect a one hundred and eighty degree turn around from Hatton on Saturday night. He won’t magically turn into Julio Cesar Chavez over night. But what we should expect is a little bit of progress.
I would like to see Hatton use some head movement and as he marches into Juan Lazcano’s face or better use of the jab. If he can do this then it would go a very long way in showing his critics that he isn’t as limited as they say he is. In fact if he is able to handle Lazcano then he is right back at the top of the heap at 140 (and he would probably meet Paulie Malignaggi later in the year). Since the retirement of Tszyu and Cotto’s ascension to Welterweight the division isn’t as deep as it was five years ago (in fact it is pretty shallow). He could re-emerge like a phoenix and go back onto his thrown.
However, we shouldn’t also be surprised if he can’t come back. It is hard for certain fighters to just rebuild themselves after losing, especially if they were stopped. Doubt about his ability to come back could very well be in Hatton’s mind. It is up to him now to see if he can overcome his adversity and maintain his status as a upper-echelon prize fighter.
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After watching Chris Byrd get dominated and stopped by Shaun George it is clearly time for him to hang the gloves and move on to something less dangerous. His upper body movement is gone and so is his ability to take a punch. He is clearly finished, and hopefully he can see it too. I don’t want him step into the ring and take more damage to reclaim the past glory he is never go to attain. He was at one time a damn good Heavyweight who made the most out of his skills despite being undersized for the division, and while he was able to rebuild his standing in the sport after his losses to Ibeabuchi and Wladimir Klitschko, he needs to step away.