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© Jane Warburton / Saddo Boxing
After emerging victorious from the biggest PPV fight of all time against modern day great Oscar De La Hoya this past May, is WBC Welterweight Champion Floyd Mayweather headed for a shocking upset against Ricky “Hitman” Hatton on December 8?
Mayweather has a long history of rubbishing Hatton and spent most of his publicity tour with the world light welter champion contending that the Englishman didn’t belong in the same ring.
Additionally, Mayweather signed on for a stint this Autumn on the TV show, “Dancing With The Stars”, hardly the actions of a fighter who believes that he is going into a dangerous fight.
Conversely, Hatton has had what insiders are calling the training camp of his life and once again, finds himself with nothing to lose against a fighter that many are giving him zero chance to upset.
Mayweather, with his razor sharp skills in every aspect of the game, will clearly present the steepest hurdle that Hatton has yet to face in the ring but how many opponents has “Pretty Boy” faced with the combination of stamina, strength, quickness and sheer confidence that Hatton brings to the table?
The last time that Hatton faced a pound for pound opponent, his enthusiasm came out in the form of a vicious street fight between the ropes that left a very dangerous Kostya Tszyu the victim of a severe beating, which almost no one believed that Hatton was capable of administering beforehand.
Oscar De La Hoya clearly showed that Mayweather had difficulty with a strong opponent advancing behind the jab but, in the final stages of his career, lacked the stamina to maintain that approach and settled into the kind of slow paced fight favored by Mayweather.
Hatton won’t be under the same energy limitations as “The Golden Boy” and will almost certainly press Mayweather ceaselessly for all 12 rounds.
Mayweather has the skills to largely negate Hatton’s pressure with movement, but at some point will tire from the effort and be forced to trade in the trenches, Hatton’s stock in trade. Does Mayweather have the power to back Hatton off in the latter stages of the bout?
The Grand Rapids, Michigan native has had his toughest fights when faced with fearless pressure fighters in the form of Jose Luis Castillo and Emmanuel Augustus, neither of whom have the offensive arsenal of Hatton.
The only time that Hatton faced a fighter with anything approaching Mayweather’s skill, he had a very close call against Luis Collazo, winning a narrow decision to a fighter dominated by Shane Mosley in his next fight.
But Collazo is a southpaw and Hatton has always had trouble with lefties, touching the canvas for the only time in his career against Eamonn Magee in 2002.
There are so many variables to this clash that the hypotheticals could continue forever and ultimately, analyzing past fights comes to nothing once the bell rings so leaving all that behind, I’ll just say that Mayweather’s place at the top of the pound for pound heap will be occupied by a fat kid from Hattersley, England on December 8, 2007.
