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Matthew Hatton thought that he was going to be defending his British central area welterweight title against former foe Rob Burton tonight in Halifax, England. Things are not always what they seem however in the sports of kings. As evidenced by our own Ben Lynch’s stellar interview with Hatton yesterday, the title in contention is now Burton’s central area light middleweight belt! A rather unexpected turn of events but the show must go on, as they say. For Matthew Hatton and his conditioning coach Bobby Rimmer, the rematch against Burton was never going to be easy but now it just got a little bit harder as the younger brother of world-class light welterweight body punching terror Ricky Hatton will be giving away about a stone to the brawling Barnsley man.
Matthew Hatton likes a good fight and knows that he’ll get just that against his rugged nemesis Rob Burton. The two have met once already back in May, with Hatton coming away with the regional central area crown. It was a hard fought affair with the hometown fighter Burton ever pressing the younger man, but the Billy Graham trained twenty-three year old put his considerable skill advantage to good use. “Rob is technically quite limited but he’s a strong fighter and as tough as they come,” recalled Hatton. “He’s fit and he comes to fight so it should be a good tear up. I know that he thinks he can improve on his last performance against me but I’ve come on leaps and bounds since that fight and I’m pretty sure that I can do a job on him.”
Bobby Rimmer also sees this contest as a chance for Hatton to improve upon his work as he feels there were several factors involved previously that are not expected to play a part in the rematch. “The first fight against Burton was Matthew’s first ten rounder,” said the conditioning coach. “I think that he was a little bit worried that he might not be able to make the full ten rounds and held back a bit I think. One thing that Matthew has stopped doing that should make a difference is that he’s stopped blowing up between fights. He’s been keeping his weight down and he’s really in the best shape of his life now.”
Fresh off two wins against good domestic level resistance, Hatton feels right on form going into what should be the most difficult challenge of his twenty four fight career, particularly given the last minute weight issue. “I only boxed about five weeks ago so I’m actually still fit from my last fight,” he said. “I haven’t done much sparring because I just fought but we have been watching tapes of my first fight with Burton and working on improvements on my end. I hope it does make the Sky broadcast because it’s brilliant being on TV and it does push you a little bit harder.”
Matthew Hatton wants nothing better than to get this second fight with Burton behind him and move onto fulfilling bigger goals that will take him closer to what he’d like to accomplish by the end of his career. “The next step I’d like to take would be going after the English title,” said Hatton. “My promoter Frank Warren spoke to me last week and said that he’d be pushing me towards another title early next year. That could possibly be the English but there are a lot of international titles knockin’ about. I know they’re keen on me fighting Ross Minter. There’s a lot of different opportunities for me out there, but they’re all based on me winning this fight on Friday night. I really just want to move on to bigger and better things.”
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Curtis McCormick can be reached at thomaspointrd@aol.com
