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Make no mistake, Ricky Hatton is no magician but “The Hitman” will look to make Ray Oliveira go away tomorrow night at the Excel Arena in London as he hopes to clear a path that leads directly to the light welterweight division’s undisputed champion, |
Kostya Tszyu. Hatton, 37-0 (27), will be defending his WBU belt for the fifteenth time but far more importantly will seek to preserve his IBF number one ranking that gives Hatton what he hopes will be the opportunity to face the Russian born master in the ring. Oliveira, for his part, won’t be undertaking the transatlantic journey from the US to simply lie down on Saturday night but rather, he fully intends to bring the WBU trinket and Hatton’s unbeaten status back with him to his home state of Rhode Island.
Ray Oliveira has faced a long list of top-flight light welterweights and a couple of excellent welters as well during his storied career. He also has been involved in the top three Compubox “punches thrown” fights of all time. The achievement that shines brightest these days, however, is the win Oliveira holds over current WBA kingpin “Vicious” Vivian Harris. Three years ago, the now thirty-six-year-old used his ring smarts, long jab, and high work rate to frustrate the hard-punching Harris, who lost the only fight of his career to date to Oliveira. The Rhode Islander also has never been stopped in a fifty-eight fight career that reads forty-nine victories, seven losses, with two draws and twenty-two stoppages.
Hatton knows full well that despite his being favored to win by the media and fans alike, he’s likely in for a long night’s work. “This fight is doubly important to me,” said the WBU titlist. “There’s no question of motivation for this one because Ray Oliveira has been in with so many high quality fighters and I want to do a better job than they’ve done. I’ll show him the respect that he deserves because he has been in with so many good fighters but styles make fights and I think that’s what is going to make this such a good one. Oliveira does have a high work rate and throws a high volume of punches, but I think if he’s going to get on the back foot, jab and move, try and outbox me, he’s going to have to cover a lot of miles. One thing I do is make my opponents work for three minutes a round, so if he’s going to try and outbox me and box off the back foot, he’s got a lot of miles to cover.”
Ray Oliveira is still fighting at an age when most boxers have hung up the gloves. Still, he shows little signs of slowing down and has gone 5-1 in his last six bouts. Hatton’s trainer Billy Graham isn’t counting on Oliveira to show his age or suffer any ill effects of having to make the 140-pound light welterweight limit for the first time since 2001. “I’m not counting my chickens about the weight effecting Ray,” said Graham. “In my experience fighters all over the world make weight in the most diabolical ways and I think Oliveira has been doing that for years and to an extent he’s been able to get away with it. Now he’s got a nutritionist and a strength coach and if that coach is excellent, Ray could make weight no problems. That might be the case as you can make any weight you want but there’s always a point where you can go too far. No matter what you do, no matter how fit you are, if you push the weight loss past your limit it can be disastrous. He might struggle to make the weight but we’re not preparing for that, we’re preparing for the best Ray Oliveira and we’re going to make him work his butt off.”
Should Oliveira master the weight challenge and turn back the clock a bit, he certainly has a chance to pull off a career best upset. The former two-time world title challenger will be looking to play the part of spoiler but he’ll have to contend with a very motivated Ricky Hatton, the same one that tore right through another veteran fighter who had never been stopped, Mike Stewart, this past October. “I was very motivated for the Stewart fight and I think it showed as I was able to get back into the kind of form I’m capable of,” said Hatton. “I was very happy with my performance in that fight as it had been a frustrating year. I had a fight with Kelson Pinto fall through and Miguel Cotto ended up knocking him out in fantastic style. Cotto got rave reviews and the way I look at it, that could have been me. I could have been the one to burst Pinto’s bubble and they could have been raving about me but the fight fell through.”
“Sharmba Mitchell and I were supposed to fight in June but that fell through. Then when you see what Kostya Tszyu did to Mitchell in their rematch last month and I thought that was something that I could have done instead but the fight never happened. Then a fight with Vivian Harris fell through and it was a very frustrating twelve months for me. The performance in the Vilches fight in June wasn’t what I expected of myself and I was very, very disappointed when I watched the tape of that. I thought to myself ‘come on Richard, forget about all the politics and the fights falling through, start performing like you know you can’. And I think that’s what I did against Mike Stewart.”
Stewart never really had a chance as Hurricane Hatton tore through the American within five torrid rounds. It’s a testimonial to Stewart’s heart and toughness that he lasted as long as he did, absorbing tremendous punishment while having very limited successes of his own. When the smoke cleared, Hatton was the new number one challenger to the IBF title. After that organization’s champion Tszyu stopped Sharmba Mitchell in three devastating rounds a month later, a highly anticipated match-up developed. Kostya Tszyu would have to face mandatory challenger Hatton or risk being stripped of his title.
While it’s not yet apparent just what career path Tszyu will take, Billy Graham is planning on preparing his fighter to face the adopted Australian by the spring of next year and has no shortage of confidence in Hatton’s chances. “Kostya Tszyu looked very good against Mitchell and that’s a real dangerous fight for us,” he said. “With Tszyu, you have to get past that murderous right hand, but Ricky is very different from most people Tszyu has fought. I see the most danger for us at the start of the fight. Tszyu would be pretty well advised to get the job done early to get Ricky out of the way because I don’t think that he could cope with the pace and the variety that Ricky has. Kostya Tszyu is usually stronger than his opponents but that might not be the case with Ricky, who would look to get inside where I feel he’s a lot better than Tszyu. It would be one hell of a fight and for once we’ll be the underdogs, which I think I’d enjoy.”
Ricky Hatton looks forward to fighting the way the rest of us look forward to eating a meal after a hard day at work and ever since he was seventeen years old, he’s dreamed of fighting for a major world title. With that goal now in sight, the Manchester native isn’t about to let Ray Oliveira or anyone else stand in his way. “I’m in a position now where I can’t be in a better place in order to get the big fights I’ve always wanted,” said Hatton. “I can’t say anything detrimental about Kostya Tszyu’s performance because with the layoffs and the injuries, you have to take your hat off to him. He showed why he’s the number one fighter in the division. But it might be a different story if you’ve got somebody like myself who’s a bit quicker than Sharmba Mitchell was in that fight, a little bit sharper, who can make you miss and make you pay with hard shots and hard body shots. I want to put myself in with the best and I think Kostya Tszyu proved that he’s the best. I pray to God that I get the opportunity now.”
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Curtis McCormick can be reached at 2004-12-10
