Richard John Hatton vs. Arturo Gatti

Brit Ricky was 'gifted' a win in America with an American ref & 3 American judges? LOL Well that's your opinion.. IMO it was a fair decision.. best case scenario for Collazo was 6 rounds a piece. Hatton sent him sprawling in the 1st so still takes it. Hatton got the better of more of the rounds. Punch stats favour Hatton too.

Collazo was a skillful southpaw & a natural welterweight. If anything.. moving up from 140 and beating Luis (& he did..) just shows that Ricky was not as bad as many claim. Throw in men like Malinaggi, Castillo, Tszyu, Phillips etc too & he quite clearly should be a healthy favourite over Gatti.

Consider too that Hatton stopped Hutchinson in 4 while Gatti went the distance with him. Again, we all love Gatti but his best wins at 140 are maybe a 40 year old Leija & a guy (Branco) who lost to Hattons baby brother.

If you want a back & forth over the Collazo fight instead though then I'll be honest, I can't be arsed, it's been done to death & I have potential corona virus symptoms so need to preserve my energy for masturbation with a carrot up my arse.

 

Hatton can be walked into a sharp left hook, but I don't reckon Gatti exploits that. Hard to see past the Hitman here.

That's how I had it, even in rounds with Ricky winning by the knockdown. I'm not going to take great exception if anyone scores for Collazo by a point, but the fight's reputation as a gift is overstated.

 

There is a difference between getting caught by one of the best punchers in the game in Manny and Gatti. I admire Gatti's toughness but he is nowhere near Manny in talent/explosive power. Hatton was strong enough to bully Koysta around and basically quit in his corner.

 

If we take the very best, most disciplined version of Gatti at 130 (the one who won the title, not the one who defended it), we can maybe make a case for Gatti having a chance in some P4P fantasy matchup, but Ricky was just a much higher caliber gun at 140. Too much footspeed, with great strength, nous and combination-punching expertise on the inside.


Big Arturo fan, FWIW, and can state with no shame that I have all the Roots of Fight shirts bearing his name.

 

An old injured not had a real run in a while tyszu
Caught him just like schenko caught wicky sliding

 

No 20 year old aint winning the heavyweight title again
They wont pit the prospects so soon
Saftey first approach

 

Even that older version of Tyszu was way more dangerous than Gatti ever was or could be. I definitely think if Hatton and Tyszu met a few years earlier Tyszu would have won hands down. With that said, it was Hatton strength that wore Koysta down. He tried the same thing against Manny and got caught by Manny's unbelievable speed and power.

 

Yep he struggled with movers
Hence would not risk witter and the domestic loss
He could of crumbled then
Hence safely guided to the big time

 

Hatton would maul and run over Gatti. Different levels - and it always surprises me how underrated Hatton is on this forum, but how overrated someone like Cotto is (for comparison).

 

IMO Cotto's boxing skills are very overrated on this forum (they're not bad ofc, people just make out he's a master when really he jumbled between two styles, usually). I pick Hatton over him, for the reasons you stated etc.

 

I think Hatton get's a little underrated here, but dude, Cotto's done more as a pro, beat the better guys.

 

I meant H2H, which is the debate here.

 

I don't rate Gatti. He's just not that good. He's not all that skilled relative to world level. He's not really even that physically imposing either. He's not particularly strong or rugged or tough. I can't think of many fighters who relied on pure heart as much as he did. His heart actually made a big difference.

 

I disagree. His boxing skills are not overrated. His natural athleticism and talent is though. His skill is sublime, but against the very best he couldn't come close to matching them athletically.