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Originally Posted by MAYWEATHER P4P#1
Right he beat Kostya for top spot at lightwelter but lets not forget Kostya was 35 had only fought once in 23 month leading upto the fight but it was a great result for Hatton.Then he fought Maussa a man who was lucky to have a world title Hatton won but since fighting Hatton Maussa has lost twice in as many fights his last by Ko in round 1.Then came Collazo for the WBA welterweight championship to make Hatton a 2 weight champ Hatton won but struggled down the stretch many thought Collazo won the fight.Then came Urango a tough but unproven fighter for Hattons old IBF lightwelter title Hatton won but started running out of gas and ideas down the stretch again.Castillo was next up but in my opinion and many other peoples Castillo was on the downward slope infact very near the bottom Hatton produced a great win on paper KO4.Right the question is Hatton did'nt fight for a genuine title or a top flight fighter till fight 39 when he beat Kostya in his last 4 fights he has fought 3 world champs but not top flight then Castillo is Hatton really ready for Mayweather and can he really win??
The Kostya Tszyu bullshit annoys me because going into the fight he was p4p number 3. So obviously the general concensus was that he was still absolutely awesome. I know he had only one fight in 29 months but it's not like Ricky Hatton was his comeback fight. His comeback fight was Mitchell and the fact that he only needed 3 rounds to completely destroy mitchell proves that he was far from 'done' as a fighter. In fact that performance completely blitzed his earlier performance against the same fighter, back when many would argue Kostya was closer to his 'prime.'
A lot of critics complain about the fact that Kostya had only fought 9 rounds in 29 months going into the Hatton fight but i don't see how that is a big deal. David Haye generally don't fight that many rounds, Edwin Valero generally don't fight that many rounds. Just because you don't need the rounds to win the fight, it shouldn't mean you don't have the necessary fitness to compete in a 12 rounder. Team Tszyu were responsible for getting him into sufficient shape to defend his title over 12 hard rounds. They didn't under estimate Hatton like most critics did. They did their homework and Kostya was in great shape.....he pretty much kept up with Hatton for 12 highly charged rounds. Hatton was just that bit better all around. No excuses.
IMO the fight with Maussa happened purely because Maussa had just won the WBA title with a decent KO of Viv Harris. The fight was a gimme basically.....a unification bout that would give Hatton the necessary exposure and the necessary bargaining power to go across the pond and make some serious dollar....at 140. It made great business sense at the end of the day and it was crucial to keep the momentum building at this important stage of his career.
The it kinda went wrong. Hatton was supposed to fight Juan Lazcano but he got injured and had to pull out. Hatton had been out for 7 months already and rather than lose the HBO date of May 13th he decided to go ahead with it and fight the only feasable opponent out there which happened to be Luis Collazo. Now Hatton had been training to make 140 nut now he had 7 weeks to adjust his schedule and pack on the necessary muscle to fight strongly at 147.....aswell as having to alter his training style in order to prepare for a very slick southpaw. It didn't quite go to plan and the weight he put on was more stodge than muscle and he blatantly wasn't himself at all. The fact that he was fighting a bigger southpaw didn't help. He struggles against Southpaws. Kudos to him for taking on the challenge, and controversial or not (i didn't think it was personally) he got the W and with it claimed the WBA 147 crown.
Now i know he got stick for not re-matching Collazo but to be honest i don't blame him. He won the fight first time round in Collazo's back yard. Collazo made him look bad and he wasn't a big name. Hardly the sort of opponent you would want to face again when you are trying to crack America. IMO he shouldn't have agreed to a rematch but he did actually say 'if the terms are right and if the fight makes sense' or something along those lines. Also remember it must be incredibly hard to turn down an offer for a rematch, live on television, when the adrenaline is flowing. We've all said stuff in those situations where in hindsight we look back and think 'why did i say that?'
He was probably thinking 'why the F*** did i fight him in the first place?'
Then came the baffling part for me. Why he chose to fight Urango....another strong southpaw. I'm not sure what other options were available to be honest but i genuinely got the impression that Hobson was trying to send out a message to Frank Warren to say 'i've got Ricky 3 world title fights in a row, you got him 1 in 9 years'.
Just a strange choice of opponent. Maybe at the time he was the best option available at 140. Anyways he fought him and he beat him easily. He was S*** hot for the forst 5 or 6 rounds. Then he gasses out. That worried me during the fight...but my worries were eased after the fight when i saw how poorly he was a few days before the fight. He basically had flu and hit a brick wall half way through the fight. He did what he had to do and basically 'old man'd' Urango. Now a seasoned vet would have probably got credit for that tactic but Hatton didn't, mainly because he again had failed impose himself on the American audience. Fair enough.
Now the castillo fight is where i get pissed off. Before the fight the concensus was that this was a 50-50 fight. The betting was pretty even. Some guys on here even had Castillo in top ten p4p....and rightly so because he was up there after knocking out Chico and even if he wasn't exactly awesome against Reyes and Ngoudjigumdrops he still got the win. I find it hard to believe that in the 4 months between beating Chico (yes i know he had the weight advantage) and fighting Reyes, he had become a 'shot fighter.' And his 'shotness' carried into the Ngoudjigumdrops fight. I'm not buying that personally. There wasn't really a round in the Hatton fight where it was obvious he was shot. I remember Hatton sayin to Graham after the 3rd round 'he is warming to it now' basically explaining that Castillo had just had a really good round and was everything but a shot fighter. Now what happened in the 4th round had nothing to do with Castillo being 'shot.' That shot very visibly split Castillo in two. That shot pretty much stops any prime 140 fighter. End of.
With all that being said, i still don't think he will quite have enough to beat Mayweather. But that isn' because Hatton is over-rated (he is stil under-rated IMO)....it is more to do with Mayweather being an amazing fighter.
