Urango had indeed been frustrating. Frustratingly impervious to Hatton’s armoury, frustratingly strong, so durable that he denied Hatton a showpiece knockout and forced him to go nose to nose to the end of the twelfth before claiming the Colombian’s IBF light-welterweight crown on a unanimous points decision.
All three judges agreed that Urango had been worth only one of the 12 rounds and while that was a little hard on him, their scores reflect Hatton’s superior ring-craft. The story they do not tell is of how badly Hatton was hurt in the fifth round and how his strength deserted him in the final throes of the bout.
There are two ways of looking at this. You can admire Hatton’s guile for finding a hard path to victory, or you can question what happened to “Mr Entertainment” and the performance that the British challenger promised would dazzle boxing’s capital city.
The Mancunian hordes who filled the arena would probably not give a jot either way. They have enjoyed Las Vegas, they have let the city know that they are here and so loudly did they revel in their man’s victory that it seemed as though the entire 6,379 crowd was on the light-blue side. Many of them will start saving tomorrow for Hatton’s next bout, which was confirmed immediately afterwards as being back in Las Vegas on June 2 or 23, when he will defend his title against José Luis Castillo, the Mexican who struggled through 12 rounds against Hermann Ngoudjo before winning a split decision on the same bill.
Already Hatton is hailing the Castillo contest as a classic — “If you want to watch two guys knock hell out of each other, watch us,” he said — although the same rhetoric filled the build-up to the encounter with Urango. It will be the last of Hatton’s three-bout deal with HBO, the American broadcaster, and a lot hangs on him being true to his word.
It did seem as if he would be true to it here. He started well; indeed, he believed that he had started so well that he compared himself to Willie Pep, the American featherweight of the 1940s and 1950s who was so technically good that, legend has it (wrongly), he once won a round without throwing a punch.
Hatton may have been overestimating himself, but after the first round, which was close, he began to find his range and he won the second, third and fourth with an ease and a class that emphasised the gulf in quality. By the fourth he was dancing round his rival, firing off hooks and uppercuts that Urango was struggling to spot. The champion was slow of pace and short of ideas. He seemed to be doing well merely to withstand the assault.
That was why that fifth round was a surprise. The Hatton camp knew to expect Urango to go to the body and when the Colombian connected with a series of shots in quick succession, he drove them home with a force that would influence the rest of the contest.
Immediately, Hatton protected his chest with his right arm. He was still carrying the pain in the sixth round, but by the eighth it was clear that Urango’s offensive had had lasting effect. Indeed, Hatton’s right hand had become so ineffective that it seemed reasonable to assume he had picked up an injury to his hand, his arm or perhaps a rib.
Hatton insisted afterwards that there was no injury, that he had merely been weathering a storm. But when the storm had died down, Hatton was not able to regain his earlier supremacy.
The mind flashed back to his finest moment, against Kostya Tszyu 19 months ago. Against Tszyu, Hatton’s workrate had been phenomenal and undiminishing. Here, against a lesser opponent, his workrate slowed and he started throwing single punches and then falling forward into the clinch. One punch, clinch; one punch, clinch. Totally out of character, this was the staccato rhythm with which he elected to defend his clear lead.
According to Hatton, this was tactical. Why make yourself vulnerable, he asked, when you are so far ahead on points? Why, indeed. But four rounds is a long time to play out the punch-clinch rhythm and Hatton did not look as if he had the reserves to box in any other way. He looked spent. Hatton insisted that he was boxing clever. “I think I know when to hold on and nick a rest,” he said.
The issues here are age and lifestyle. If he had not faded in a similar way in his previous bout, against Luis Collazo, when he won the WBA welterweight title eight months ago, they might not seem so significant. As he proved against Tszyu, Hatton’s stamina is his strength, but he has twice seemed sapped of energy.
“Maybe he’s reached his peak,” Wayne McCullough, the Las Vegas-based Irish boxer, said. “Maybe his lifestyle is catching up with him.”
Hatton will detest the suggestion, but it may be that his friendship with “Mr Guinness” and fast food has begun to dull the fast-twitch fibres of his body. It was bound to happen at some stage, if not at the age of 28.
It was this subject that Bob Arum, Castillo’s promoter, came straight to after the bout. Arum will co-promote the bout against Castillo and it is in his interests for Hatton to put on a good show. He observed that Hatton and Castillo had been “a little disappointing” and noted that Hatton’s energy levels had fallen as the bout progressed. “The key to both these guys is that they don’t balloon up,” he said.
The good news is that Hatton will have little time to work on his beer-and-kebabs regime. What also augurs well is that it did not take long for him to acknowledge that he was only “reasonably happy” with his day’s work. He gave himself seven out of ten.
Even that seems generous. He has made so many friends here, though, that many want to see him push himself closer to perfection again.
A family affair
Matthew Hatton produced the best performance of his 34-bout career to ensure that his elder brother, Ricky, would not be the only Hatton taking a belt back to Manchester. He forced Frank Houghtaling to retire at the end of the seventh round to win the IBF international welterweight title. “To beat him in style in Las Vegas is a dream come true,” he said.
Numbers up
4
The number of consecutive world-title challenges that Hatton has won, Urango following Kostya Tszyu, Carlos Maussa and Luis Collazo in losing his title to the Mancunian
258
The number of punches Hatton landed during the bout, a success rate of 34.1 per cent
153
The number of punches Urango landed, a success rate of 26.8 per cent
1
The number of rounds Urango won on each of the judges’ scorecards
$500
The price of a ringside seat for the bout at the Paris Las Vegas Casino and Hotel
£14.95
The price to watch the bout on Sky Box Office
$2m
Hatton’s estimated purse for the bout. Urango, the defending champion, earned $500,000 (about £253,000)
