Would his career have gone differently had he used them more instead of getting sucked into brawls? Clearly he would have been 3-0 against Ward if he boxed like he did in the 2nd fight, which he won easily. Would some of his other losses have gone the other way? What do you guys think?
Maybe among casual fans, but I think hardcore fans tend to overlook them a bit. Not saying his skills were great, but he definitely had better ability than he showed/ a lot of people give him credit for.
Gatti had decent boxing skills and pretty good speed of hand and foot (more so at 130), but it didn't take much to catch him clean and draw him into a war. Gatti boxed pretty well against the good but smaller Tracy Harris Patterson. People (HBO) made a big thing out of Gatti outboxing Micky Ward and Jesse James Leija, but Ward was a fringe contender, and both guys were at the end of their careers. In his prime, Gatti still lost to Angel Manfredy, twice to Ivan Robinson, and went life-and-death with Wilson Rodriguez and Gabriel Ruelas, who was actually pretty talented, but not the same fighter he had been due to his psyche from the Jimmy Garcia tragedy. No one would ever accuse, say, Ricky Hatton of being some really skillful boxing technician, but he outboxed Ben Tackie handily and used a good deal of movement. Outside of the smaller Patterson (who caught a bad break in the rematch when his bodypunch was ruled low), Gatti's displays of his boxing in which he got praised, were also Tackie-level fighters (actually probably lower level than him).