I know its easy to get annoyed by mouthy and poorly informered Americans in the General Forum when they say negative things about our nations fighters. But the truth is, sometimes they have a point. Its seems to me that we are sold the lie that our fighters our better than they really are. And even if we don't believe this lie at first, very careful and creative matchmaking usually ends up convincing us that our boxers are elite competitors. When the reality is, that almost everytime they go in against the best they usually lose. Hatton is a perfect example of this, many of us had him in our P4P lists, the majority of us voted that he would stop Pacquiao. We choose to ignore the context of his best wins, and blindly accepted it when he fought the Juan Lazcanos of this world. But when he got the elite level, he wasn't the fighter we had been manipulated into believeing he was. Ricky Hatton was always more Arturo Gatti, than Floyd Mayweather. It's not just Hatton. Calzaghe is generally regarded as a legend by many Britons. Why? Because he managed to scrape past B-Hop and retire unbeaten, was he really elite, or was he just a world class fighter, with a well managed career? The only genuinely elite, an truly great fighter, who proved himself to be just that, in my entire lifetime, is Lennox Lewis. We've had great talent like Naz, and good fighters like Benn, Eubank, Hatton, Calzaghe et al, but Lewis was the only one who lives up to the idea of what the money men sold us.
In fairness, Lewis was stopped by McCall and Rahman, both times out of sheer sloppiness/laziness. IMO the loss to Rahman was worse than the loss to Pacquiao, because Lewis could have easily taken him out if it wasn't for his lazy attitude. Hatton is in no way an elite fighter, but how many elite fighters has the WORLD seen in the past 20 years? What I don't like, is the presumption that Hatton is a complete bum and fraud because he had the audacity to get beat by the very best fighters in the world. People are totally obsessed with 'proving' that Hatton is a complete tomato-can, and I can only assume they have some sort of bitter agenda against Hatton for reasons I can't figure out. It seems to irritate people that Hatton believes in himself and wants to challenge himself, and believes that he can compete at the top level - as if that is a crime. And yet, before he fought Tsyzu (and afterwards come to think of it) he was constantly criticized for not taking on the best, or travelling outside his comfort zone. And now the general opinion is that he should have just admitted he was shite and stayed in the UK defending his WBU title! He's certainly no worse a fighter than Benn (for example), and people are more than happy to swing from Benn's nuts all day long, so I just don't understand where people are coming from.
Well, if Hatton comes back and avenges his loses to Floyd and Manny, I will certainly be the first in line to give him all the respect in the world. You mention that Lewis lost to Rahman and McCall - thats boxing and he avenged both defeats. A fighter is not just defined by the 'L's on his record. He is defined by the fighters he fought, by the fighters he beat, and how he responds to the inevitable defeats. I'm not suggesting that Hatton is a bum. I get the feeling you've missed the point of my original post.
I voted for a Pac KO, what was the forum verdict? I think most sane people have a handle on where these guys rank in world terms. I fundamentally disagree with your post, simply because you are criticising our fighters for something every fighter does (i.e. managing their career). We could sit down and pick apart Floyd and RJJ's careers, Hopkins too. I think they are all great fighters but of course they have taken matches that made sense at the right time. In a nutshell you are buying into the American hype that their fighters are somehow 'special' or automatically better. They're not. They never travel or you'd see some seriously adjusted records.
Who is this collective 'we'? Posters on esb or just casual sports fans? If it's the latter then so what? What do they know? Also I think you'll find quite a few americans who still believe Kelly Pavlik is 'elite.'
But you refer to Lewis as elite, when he got sparked cold by strictly B-Level fighters (again, out of arrogance and laziness), wheras Hatton at least had the decency to get destroyed by the worlds best.
Don't really get the point of this...... All the fighters you mentioned are tremendous fighters. If one chooses to think there elite or not thats their choice. Calzaghe/Lewis were elite IMO.
Lewis has a miles better resume than Hatton; better wins against better fighters and more dominant over a longer period of time in a significantly stronger and deeper division. He has no unavenged defeats and much greater accomplishments. If you wan't argue that Lewis isn't elite because he lost two fights, then go right ahead. It's not a particularly convincing argument.
What I'm saying is that Hatton is a limited fighter, who did his best against P4P greats, wheras, Lewis was a great fighter who did less than his best against B-Level fighters. That's all.
I don't think Hatton should feel dissapointed I don't think fans should look at his record and say, this is a poor fighter, lost twice. He's lost twice, only twice, both to the best fighters at the time, thats better than what Pacquiao can even say about his loses! Lewis is a great fighter, but Hattons division(s) are full of greats in this era, unlike Lewis who had 1-2 at most. Should Hatton, and Hatton fans, really feel that Hatton is poor because hes lost to the greatest fighters of the last ten?