Hatton must move mountain to beat Mayweather by Terry Dooley Dec 8th 2007

This weekend sees a massive weekend of boxing in general taking place and a huge weekend in particular for our domestic fighters.  There is the minor matter of Floyd Mayweather versus Ricky Hatton, the starter course of John Murray (fighting for the third time in the United States and now a joint headliner there), the potential sauerkraut of Arthur Abrahams versus Wayne Elcock, the meat of Danny Williams versus Oleg Platov (the best boxer nearly named after a great philosopher), Ali Nuumbembe's emotional first fight since the death of his father and should I mention Amir Khan versus Graham Earl? Well, I just did but will not go into details on that one. This brief survey has probably seen me miss out at least 57 fights involving British fighters on a weekend that threatens to engulf our nation in a wave of boxing euphoria, or distress. Firstly there is the big one in Vegas as Hatton seeks to end the unbeaten run of Floyd Mayweather Junior, who will himself be hoping to inflict Hatton's first defeat. This fight will not be a tickling contest that is for sure, Hatton is only a little fighter but he did it, caused the upset, against Kostya Tszyu and throughout all the hype he has retained his ‘man of the people persona' whilst being his usual witty and sarcastic self. ‘The Hitman' is just a normal kid from a Manchester housing estate, no different from the man in the crowd really, who is just doing really well at what he does. He is like a mate to his fans, that is why they love him, and in taking this fight he is doing what they would all like to do, namely give Floyd a few clouts. Yet, we must ask, can this Guinness swilling, pie, peas and chips eating, witty and sarcastic joker really inflict Floyd's first ever defeat? Can he do what Oscar De La Hoya, Zab Judah, Diego Corrales and even Henry Bruseles failed to do? If he does he will become, arguably for some, the best fight in the world at any weight, which is something special. This writer has spent time around the Hatton camp; his training has gone perfectly, the tactics are there and the spirit is willing but do the styles favour Hatton? Can he maintain, or even reach, the level of excellence needed to beat Floyd? Will the intangibles step in and decide this fight? When first facing up to the possibility of this fight Hatton and his trainer, and strategist, Billy Graham must have felt like men standing at the foot of a cloud-busting mountain range.  They must have felt anxiety, and no little amount of awe, when faced with the mountainous sublimely of the task at hand. You say the name, “Floyd Mayweather”, and the mind reels out all the special moves he has, you stand frozen at the foot of that mountainous task not quite knowing what to do. However this does pass. Graham grabbed the fight tapes and moved away from the mountain, this distance gave him a chance to take in its entirety.  His task was to then review the tapes, to spot the little flaws in Floyd, and in doing so he was able to break the mountain down into its composite shapes, the base rectangle, the building squares and the triangular peaks, until it became not a vast mountain but a unity of manageable tasks. One marked block marked ‘brittle hands', a triangle marked ‘countering the shoulder block', etc. With this completed you can survey a task that was once impossible, that was once a vast edifice, and begin your preparations. You watch one fight and find a little ridge there, another fight shows you a footpath here, and, before you know it, you can be stood atop what was once an impossible challenge. The first scenario is that Floyd, feeling he has another Gatti before him, comes out to take the centre of the ring in order to hit Hatton with sharp bombs. If he can do this he might surprise the onrushing Hatton with his power, at the very he least he may cut Hatton into shreds in much the way Oscar De La Hoya ripped Julio Caesar Chavez apart. Of the two Floyd is the sharper, I.E. cutting, puncher. However there is a precedent here for Hatton to apply. In his surprisingly tough fight with Emmanuel Augustus Floyd did stake his claims in ring centre only for Augustus to use educated pressure and movement, coupled with punch picking, in order to bloody Floyd and draw him into the most exciting fight Floyd has fought. Hatton should be able to do this, although you can counter-argue that the Augustus fight was Floyd's first under Roger and he was in transition. If Floyd takes centre ring and Hatton, strange when you consider the styles, moves around Floyd picking shots Floyd may be forced to change tack and accept that in this fight he is not facing a Gatti. What, then, would be next for Floyd? Well he knows Hatton can be hurt by southpaws so he may opt to box a little as a southpaw and wing those right hooks at Hatton.  Luis Collazo, Eamonn Magee and Juan Urango have all hurt Hatton with right hands, Urango with a hook to the body, so Floyd may take a leaf from their book.  Not being a natural southpaw Floyd will not do this for any great period but, if he has success, he may decide that right is right for the winning of this fight and use right hands to harm Hatton. Vince Phillips, Ben Tackie and Jason Rowland have all steadied Hatton with right hands (Rowland with a right hand to the body, shortly before being KO'd) and Floyd throws a slashing, arced, right hand that is not dissimilar to the southpaw right hook. This shot spells danger for Hatton.  Floyd also has, Sharmba Mitchell springs to mind here, a wicked right hand to the body. It is a beauty of a shot, he pops you off balance with it, he can hook it around you and he can bring your arms down with it. If Floyd does find success with his right hand off the back foot it could be the ruination of Hatton as he moves onto right hand after right hand and, again, is taken apart by Floyd. To this end Hatton needs some of that Tszyu pressure, and a non-fussy referee, in order to ensure that he gets into Floyd and hammers away without having to move in and out. This in and out movement would see him take rights on the way in as well as on the way out and would surely leave him damaged both facially as well as on the scorecards. If Hatton can crawl all over Floyd he can, as he did with Kostya, negate the right hand and do some damage. However, we must bear in mind that this bullish approach will lead to clinches and fighting along the ropes. In this area Floyd can turn his shoulder, put his left arm by his navel and his right hand by his right ear, and then shoulder roll away from shots. Again this is a worry for Hatton. On the other hand Floyd is not as adept at this technique, offensively for sure, as James Toney was. You need to jack knife your body when doing it so you can bring your own right hand, then left hook, over and Floyd does not have this knack along the ropes.  Consequently the low left and cupped right, coupled with his leaning backwards, leaves Floyd open through the middle. Open to what? That most simple of punches, although one rarely used when your opponent is on the ropes, the left hand jab.  Hatton is no Larry Holmes but he can throw a good jab. Carlos Hernandez hit Floyd with the shot so why not Hatton? It is an excellent shot to hit Floyd with when he blocks with his shoulder, he is usually square-on by this point so it would knock him a little off-balance and, often, the judges score things like balance, they also score blood as well so that might be bad for Hatton. Hatton could jab Floyd a little off-balance, step around him, then land the right hook to the body and work from there. It is high-risk but then again this is boxing, not tiddlywinks. If Hatton can provide these antidotes to the tricks of Floyd we could see Floyd, after the middle rounds, adopt that excessive moment he uses when he feels he is in genuine danger. If this is the case he will be roundly booed by the large British contingent and could lose rounds down the stretch before finding himself the loser by a split-decision, two judges going for pressure, one for cleaner blows. On the other hand the intangible of Floyd being too fiercely competitive to lose might come into play and we will see Floyd the tough and proud man pulling out more tricks and slick moves to bamboozle Hatton. One thought that has crossed my mind, in the scenario of Hatton matching Floyd move for move, is that Floyd takes a trick from his trainer Roger Mayweather, who produced a master class of negation when fighting a younger Kostya Tszyu.  In this fight Roger killed Tszyu's long and close range action with clinching, grappling and mauling before losing on points. Given Floyd's youth and greater skills perhaps they have worked on a tweaked version of this strategy under the belief that Hatton will instigate clinches. In this case it might be the surprise equation that it is Floyd who works then negates, or hits then holds, on route to a scrappy points win. Despite the general belief that Hatton, a fighter never stopped, will be blown away early by Floyd, who has not stopped anyone in his last three fights; it is unlikely that an early KO for Floyd will be the case. Barring the intangibles of cuts or hand injuries the fight should go 12-rounds and see Hatton picking up a split decision win. Then the real fight, against the post-fight revisionists, will begin.

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