Hatton and Moore overrated? You must be joking! by Terry Dooley Nov 3rd 2007

My fellow BBN writer Oliver Fennell produced a fascinating article that has generated some discussion, always a good thing, and some consternation, neither here not there if you are resolute in your convictions, in boxing circles. The bane of contention is not the nature of the piece itself but the fact that Ricky Hatton and Jamie Moore are seen as the two of the most overrated fighters in Britain. Generally I do not read boxing articles, Internet writers often being prone to lapsing into pimp-talk hyperbole (this does us a lot of good, Terence! - Ed.), but decided to give this one a look and disagreed on a number of levels. Firstly, it is prudent to clear up the issue of being overrated. Clarifications of the levels involved are not taken immediately into account. It is merely a case of assessing whether a man has been overrated based on the evidence directly at hand, eventually reaching, in short, his level of boxing ability. Although the creation of a list itself implies a field of co-runners, with the antecedent talk of levels and comparisons, and, therefore, we can consider those considerations later.  For my part I fail to see how Hatton and Moore, out of all our fighters, are two of the top three most overrated. Firstly there is the case of Hatton. A fighter operating at the world level ever since his breakout win over Kostya Tszyu in 2005. The claim is that Hatton has failed to impress in his subsequent fights, I disagree, firstly with the assessment of the pragmatism of the fights themselves. Hatton's trainer, Billy Graham, often feels like the madman shouting in the market square because, since that night in 2005, both his and Hatton's single goal has been the pursuit of a fight with Floyd Mayweather. For Team Hatton all roads have led to Floyd. As for the road itself, well let us look at it. Carlos Maussa grabbed the WBA title and with it a big fat target was placed on his back. For Hatton he represented a chance to seize control of two of the major belts, Hatton won the IBF title in his fight with Tszyu, and close off the roads Floyd could take. A subsequent step-up in weight on the part of Floyd saw Hatton himself, on short notice in a fight Graham did not want, step-up in weight to take the WBA welterweight title from Luis Collazo. With the Floyd fight seemingly disappearing over the horizon Hatton took on Juan Urango, a crowd leasing fighter with a title, to grab a fresh piece of the light-welterweight pie. This fight set-up a bout with Jose Luis Castillo; with the long-term hope that seeing Hatton entertain in Vegas would bring Mayweather to the negotiating table. Well Floyd came to the table and the big fight is sealed. In that sense the road, when the conclusion of Hatton-Mayweather is dropped at its end, is now one that has successfully reached its designated goal.  As for in-ring form the fact is that a reckless Hatton overcame the crises caused by Maussa, who cut him, and Collazo, who rocked him to his foundations. For half a dozen rounds he picked shots perfectly against Urango before losing steam boxing and boxing to orders. Against Urango in particular Hatton did show signs of his old form. Shots were picked, a lead was built and the fight was shut-down. Hopkins does it and it is old-school boxing at its best. Hatton does it and it is a struggle. I guess you need to be an old man to be old-school. Castillo was touched-up sufficiently to loosen his guard then tucked away with a body shot that Marco Antonio Barrera says he would have been proud of. As bad days at the office goes this is the equivalent of clinching the deal, getting a raise, seducing your boss and earning money spying for a rival. So all in all the recent run of fights has served Hatton well, he has come out of them with mixed opinions over his form but the potential for an upturn in his pugilistic fortunes.  During this run, also, he has taken on guys who are better than many of the men faced by his British contemporaries.  As a limited slugger is Urango worse than Young Mutley? As a faded pressure fighter is Castillo worse than Michael Gomez? Collazo is a big and awkward southpaw; they are often criminally underrated, so defeating one who is naturally bigger than you is no mean feat. Also to be taken into account is whether Hatton is overrated as an in-ring technician. Again I feel he is not. Pre-Tszyu I never dreamed that Hatton would apply intelligent pressure in the way he did, that he would negate the space Kostya works in and then open the champion up. Watching Hatton up-close you see that he is a maniacally aggressive fighter who also knows when to crank back to open you up. Hatton gets on you and keeps on you, he hits you with a light shot to move your guard then clouts you with a damaging shot before grappling your strength away. It is not to everyone's liking but it is damaging and effective. Another fighter who is best appreciated up-close is Jamie Moore and we can look at him from the reverse angle. In-ring Moore is an aggressively intelligent southpaw who taps you up then breaks you down with shots to the body and the head. He can mix defence and attack as well as grappling you into suitable positions. His boxing acumen was displayed in his fight with Matthew Macklin and, away from the emotive nature of the fight, Moore gave a textbook example of how to weather pressure whilst chipping away at your opponent. In terms of his recent bouts Moore has beaten a big ungainly southpaw in Andrew Facey, so points for the result if not the performance; he defeated the aforementioned Macklin, and, between these bouts, he kept busy, as well as taking on a decent international operator, in Juan Sebastian Lujan. In the Lujan fight in particular Moore closed down his foe's offence whilst scoring with his own blows and presenting a difficult target to hit. The Sophie's Choice was there for Lujan early: commit to a fight with the bigger man or prevent him from putting sustained pressure on you. Lujan decided to just see it through and Moore looked accomplished in winning. Overall this in-ring ability is an important factor. In Moore and Hatton we have two good technical fighters who excel in their approaches. Surely the herky-jerky guys or the 1-2 merchants we see are far more overrated? In direct comparison there seem to be fighters more deserving of this dubious distinction. Hatton may be a come forward aggressor who can take part in pitched battles but he did rise to prominence by defeating a highly rated fighter in a fight people thought he would lose.  Graham Earl did the same, in fact against a very similar fighter to Tszyu, look in the dictionary under ‘Soviet boxing style' and you will see a photo of Kostya and Yuri Romanov, beaten by Earl, swapping straight shots. Earl, like Hatton dug deep for a big win yet went onto look unimpressive and raw in his next two fights, one a damaging loss to Michael Katsidis. Yet Earl is seen as a danger to the, according to Oliver, underrated Amir Khan. Surely, then, Earl is more overrated, comparatively, than Hatton? After all not many are picking Hatton over Mayweather who is miles ahead of Khan. You could say this, Earl being seen as the man to beat Khan, shows how underrated Amir is; I would venture to suggest that the scepticism arises from seeing Khan floored heavily by Limond. This in term bleeds into how we rate Khan. If Hatton is seen as being in danger to Floyd then surely he is less overrated than Khan who is seen as being in danger against Earl, who is leagues below the aforementioned fighters. You have Hatton, 5-0 in his last five at a good level, on the one hand and Earl, 3-2 in his past five and beaten by a guy, Ricky Burns, who lost at British title level, on the other hand, which man, too you, is overrated? No disrespect to Earl but if you must make these statements then I would plump for Graham as being more deserving of a spot than Hatton. So, then, what about Moore? Is there someone more deserving of a spot than him? In his own division perhaps? There is one fighter in his division who has recently been rated by the fans so why not start with him and see if that suffices. Bradley Pryce is seen in some quarters as being the man to end Jamie's aspirations before they go beyond British level. Commonwealth light-middleweight champion Pryce has dedicated himself to the sport and is in a rich vein of form, his rating has previously been just below British level so to put him in with a chance with Moore, relatively dominant at British level, is to overrate him. Again, it seems, we have stumbled across a fighter more deserving than Moore for a spot in the list. Pryce's upturn has culminated in wins over Anthony Small and Martin Concepcion. Small, as was Macklin, was an up-and-comer put into his first big test, he did well then was stopped and, despite the state of the cards, he faded early into a title fight, therefore speculation is pointless, the loss is, like Macklin's, beyond dispute.  Many, myself included, felt that Anthony was overrated at the preliminary level, he then failed at British level so, if Small is underrated, as Oliver claims, surely his level, at best, is just bellow British level, and that is a level, speculation aside, Moore has traversed well. So I would go with Pryce, or Small for that matter, as more deserving of the overrated tag. A fight between Pryce and Moore would see Moore heavily favoured, not because he is overrated but due to the fact that at British title level Pryce has been found wanting at welterweight. Pryce, who could be seen as recently overrated, is still seen as being below Moore in terms of standing so, again, perhaps we have a man more deserving of a spot on the list simply due to the fact that he is given a chance versus Moore, a chance reality does not seem to present to him. Overall it is my thinking that the placement of Moore and Hatton has been erroneous given the other figures running in the field. I have used a few examples, you may use others and I guess that this shows that the speculative aspect, done in the right nature, shows us that there could be any number of results in that kind of list. I personally feel that not many lists would turn in Hatton and Moore at number one and three respectively. So much for our remote ruminations. As for the battle hardened fighters who form our speculations, well they might just think, “Shame on you for speculating”.

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Hatton Isn't a Boxer Nov 3rd 2007, 12:12:51 by tiburonseco Of course Hatton is gonna have to think when he fights Mayweather. He didn't get to where he is by blindly coming forward as most people assume he does. The reason why people in the know say he won't beat Mayweather is because regardless of how smart or how technical Hatton thinks he is, the fact that his style revolves around constant pressure is what will be his demise. A style like Hatton's is tailor made for a style like Mayweather's. Hatton's only chance is a surprise KO, and since I've hardly ever seen Mayweather get hit with a punch he didn't see coming, I doubt that will happen.