Only those who know what it is to be stripped of a long, undefeated record
with which your entire professional persona has become synonymous will
understand the doubt, the reassessment and self-searching that Ricky Hatton
will be grappling with today, tomorrow and, most likely, for weeks to come.
“It’s so important, so significant,” Sugar Ray Leonard said afterwards in
sympathy for the defeated Briton. “It’s almost as though we need a
psychiatrist. We need to come to terms with what happened. It really is the
worst.” Hatton’s acquaintance with “the worst” has already been a trying
one. He had a postfight party planned for the Hard Rock Café in Sunday
morning’s early hours, but was informed that he was required first at the
local hospital for a brain scan.
When you have soaked up punishment to the extent that he did, such medical
checks are regulation. And anyone who saw the telecast or witnessed the thud
as he went down after one minute and 35 seconds of the tenth round, would
agree first that the fists of Floyd Mayweather were infinitely the superior,
but also that Hatton’s health check should come long before the drowning of
sorrows.
Hatton insisted on giving his press conference first, although he was keeping
an ambulance and two servicemen waiting. In it, he remained absolutely true
to self and opted for comedy – “I was doing quite well until I slipped”. He
also exhibited evidence of memory loss (he could not recall a succession of
warnings from the referee) and he delivered a blinkered assessment of his
defeat, saying that Mayweather had taken his “one chance” when it came along.
One chance? Long before Hatton’s horizontal finish, Mayweather had proved that
chances aplenty were his and that he would welcome them merrily. It took a
little time to establish his superiority, but in the fourth round, he put
together three minutes of boxing that proved instantly that his much-lauded
skills were in a different class to those of his challenger.
Then, in the eighth round, he so dismantled Hatton that it twice seemed the
bout was over. For Hatton to have pushed his challenge through to the tenth
was testament to his tenacity and astonishing reserves of courage, but now
that his undefeated record is gone, we can reflect that Mayweather truly is
the pound-for-pound champion of the world and Hatton, sadly, a considerable
way off.
As Leonard said, when you are undefeated, the possibilities are endless;
Hatton’s star was so high before this bout that he had the likes of David
Beckham, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jol-ie coming through his dressing-room door
to wish him luck. One loss, though, and the perspective changes entirely.
Hatton was brutally exposed here as a boxer high on energy, but almost
completely bereft of a jab. After Leonard’s first loss, against Roberto
Duran, he came straight back in against the Panamanian and beat him. It is
extremely hard to envisage Hatton ever beating Mayweather, even if he were
to get a second chance.
For starters, Mayweather suggested after the bout that retirement was a likely
option. He has already retired twice before, so we should take this lightly,
but he is obviously a man who believes he has achieved enough in this game.
And while the Hatton camp will debate their next move for weeks and months,
they will surely consider that the welterweight division, which has some
mighty boxers beyond Mayweather, is not worth another visit.
Wherever he does box next, though, we can be sure that his deafening army of
followers will go, too. The crowd in the MGM Grand’s Garden Arena certainly
provided a blistering backdrop to the night. Unfortunately, they will be
remembered by many for their irrepressible booing of The Star-Spangled
Banner; it was one thing to howl derision at Mayweather as he made his
entrance, but quite another to register zero respect for the singing of the
host’s national anthem.
And, disappointingly for Hatton, the crowd factor failed to make the slightest
impact where he might have hoped. Mayweather was an athlete at the height of
his powers here, certainly too confident to allow the Mancunian majority to
work their way into his mind.
It was thus against a backdrop of their chanting that Mayweather got to work
and the “Hatton Wonderland” of which they sang took on increasingly mythical
status. Hatton competed equally for the first three rounds, roughing and
grappling as expected, but notably struggling to make his tempo tell with
target-hitting punches.
Unfortunately, he sat down after the third with a cut on his right eyebrow.
His cuts man did a brilliant job, but the fourth round demonstrated that
Mayweather would not require cuts to help him. Here, he suddenly started
locating his target, bamboozling Hatton by varying his shots, snapping
Hatton’s head back with combinations that he could neither read nor defend.
Never had an opponent exposed Hatton as so simple a target.
For Hatton, the response was to get close and grapple even more, but here
Mayweather had his measure, too. Mayweather had come ready to fight, inside
the clinch as well as out, and his hallmark defensive work ensured that he
would outsmart Hatton here, too.
After a series of warnings for hitting Mayweather on the back of the head,
Hatton was officially deducted a point in the sixth round when Mayweather
almost went through the ropes. The Hattons complained afterwards that Joe
Cortez, the referee, had not allowed him to fight, that Mayweather had been
allowed to use his forearms and that it is was impossible to avoid the
champion’s back because he was turning so much.
Yet, valid though this all was, no one could pretend that Cortez had
influenced the result. Where the deducted point did have an impact, though,
was in forcing Hatton to go chasing the bout, a tactic that played further
into Mayweather’s hands. The seventh round allowed Mayweather to start
finding his range again and, but for Hatton’s sheer cussedness, the eighth
would have finished it.
Twice here, Mayweather stripped his opponent down to nothing more than a
slow-moving punchbag and twice he went looking for the finish. As Mayweather
said afterwards: “He’s as tough as nails. A couple of times, I had him hurt
and thought, ‘Damn, he’s still coming’.” Indeed he was, although the contest
was already beyond him. Mayweather continued to pick him off in the ninth
and then, in the tenth, he released a weapon learnt in the amateurs back
home in Michigan, the “check hook”, an arcing counter-shot he threw in
response to Hatton’s own hook, which missed and left him open.
Mayweather’s connected so hard that Hatton went down, his head ricocheting off
the corner as he fell. He did follow the count by boxing on, but immediately
a left, right, left took his legs away from him again and Cortez had stopped
the bout before he even hit the canvas.
“I had a ball tonight,” Mayweather said afterwards, as if it was a party not a
boxing match that he had just come through. Significantly, there was not a
single mark on his face.
The statistics said even more about the astonishing exhibition he had just
staged. He landed twice as many punches; Hatton threw and missed so many
times that only 17 per cent of his punches connected, Mayweather’s success
rate was 39.
Most damning for Hatton was that, in ten rounds, only 11 jabs found their
target. If he is to return as a serious championship contender, he will
surely have to reassess the methods and the armoury he uses to dismantle boxers
of world class. Here in Vegas, he was exposed as the cliché that so irked
him, and the “brawler” stood no chance against a Mayweather of such class.
All this will be for Hatton to ponder; he has been a remarkable, magnetic
champion and a compelling storyline, his popularity will not go away and
neither, it seems, will he. Indeed, he seems even more the boy next door now
that he is no longer, officially, invincible.
“He was definitely the toughest competitor I’ve ever faced,” was how
Mayweather rated him. And he then ducked the open invitation to rub his
victim’s nose in the dirt, opting instead to hail his courage. “Ricky
Hatton’s a true champion,” he said, “we’re not going to disrespect him, not
here.” A massive bout like this has a tendency for reassessing the world
order. Hatton, we know for sure, is as limited as he is bold. And Mayweather
can not only fight like a champion, but he can behave like one too.
The final analysis
Mayweather
Punches thrown: 329
Punches connected: 129
Percentage: 39
Jabs thrown: 72
Jabs connected: 29
Percentage: 40
Power punches thrown: 257
Power punches connected: 100
Percentage: 39
Hatton
Punches thrown: 372
Punches connected: 63
Percentage: 17
Jabs thrown: 63
Jabs connected: 11
Percentage: 17
Power punches thrown: 309
Power punches connected: 52
Percentage: 17
— Scores at the end of round nine: Burt Clements 88-82 Mayweather Dave
Moretti 89-81 Mayweather Paul Smith 89-81 Mayweather
— Bout was stopped after one minute 35 seconds of round ten. Hatton was
deducted a point in round six for hitting behind the head.
— All three judges gave Hatton round five. Clements gave Hatton round
three. All other rounds were scored to Mayweather.
