Z.Judah vs R.Hatton 147lbs o6 or o7.

Ricky always struggled with southpaws nevermind one as skilled as Zab. I remember him getting hell from Eamonn Magee (I think he was dropped in that one as well).

I'll take a Zab UD maybe even a late KO on this one.

 

Vanzie would have been fine at 140 he always had problems making LW, he had all the speed and angles to trouble Ricky, and he would have been 1 of the best he fought as a whole, Hatton may win but they weren't keen to take the fight when it was around. Remember Vanzie being stiffed twice against Earl? :-( Yea Witter turned down the Magee fight, a sense of entitlement with Witter sometimes, something a small fanbase fighter can't have

 

To be fair they did the best thing for their boxer, got him 2 super fights with purse parity against the 2 P4P best fighters on the planet. It was a frustrating time for hardcore Brit fans and I was a big Hatton critic because of it.

 

I never understood the fascination with Hatton. He looked like a club fighter on angel dust to me. He accomplished quite a bit with little skills though and seems to be a real nice guy.

 

He was from a big boxing city in Manchester, he managed to aline himself with the local football club (Manchester City), who had a massive following but were starved of success. He had the very bogus WBU belt early on that some fans mistook for a real world title. He came across as a very modest, 1 of the lads, down to earth champion, was undefeated, dominated overmatched opponents that his casual fans saw as real title challenges. His Tyszu win was also seen as pretty epic at the time and ofcourse gave him the lineal 140lb title, and in his prime his workrate, bodypunching, strength were all formidible to be fair to him. Allot of people, even knowledgable fans were picking him over Mayweather at the time too. He was marketed really well, he had good UK TV exposure in terms of his fights and TV shows. Perfect management and cashing out, for his sins he actually thought he'd win his cashing out fights

 

I liked Hatton. I remember early on watching him fight Eamonn Magee on Showtime. The guy was a fringe fringe top 20 guy and he planted Hatton with a straight punch. I knew it was going to happen. Hatton was horrible defensively and fought so squared up.
I thought Tsyzu would literally decapitate Hatton, and the win was monumental, but it turned out to be more of a realization to Tsyzu that he no longer could get himself up to fight. Mentally he quit in that fight and wasnt prepared for a physical fight, but it was monumental for Hatton because people believed he could walk through any straight puncher. :shock:

 

This is one of the rare examples where the weight class would matter. At 140lbs, I say Hatton by late TKO because Judah would probably quit once it got nasty down the stretch. At 147, I say Judah on points.

 

This is really a pretty intruiging match-up....was there ever any serious talk of these 2 getting a fight????

Both are solid at 140.....both have a nice fan base who feels that one or both are on par with or just below most greats....both have detractors that make them sound like journeymen incable of beating any top tier talent. IMHO the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. I still think Hatton would be to much at 140, which is really the most relevant match-up between the 2...but it would have or would have had an interesting dynamic!