america on british fighters..

I agree with what you say, and I am a Hatton fan but I was just looking back on his record, and considering his best win is still probably his KO win over Tszyu. He has a very good record but when you compare it with Pacman, Mayweather, Hopkins, and even a JMM or a Shane Mosley I think he falls a little short. I would consider Hattons record "good" and Pacmans "great". This may be another big aspect of the fight and another advantage in Pacmans corner, he has more super fight experience. Hattons only true super fight was a loss to Floyd.

 

good post but it's less about hyping fighters and more about a fighter and his promoter being willing to make the move on the proven world class fighters rather than calling them out from homefield with a good record but one that lacks names.

i agree that hopkins was a good win for calzaghe and he deserves props for that win, but the fact is that calzaghe could (and should if he wants to call himself 'great') have gone to the US and fought some pretty ordinary contenders at MW or LHW to easily get a shot at jones or hopkins when those fights really mattered.

likewise the kessler fight was a great win for calzaghe, but kessler is now suffering from the same syndrome that you're talking about with british fighters because his promoter is shafting him on decent fights since teh calzaghe loss - a fight that didn't really hurt him in terms of fanbase and reputation.

for my mind i certainly don't 'laugh' at british fighters. but i do criticise their career path.

you mentioned hatton and he's the golden exception to this rule in recent time. nobody has the right to judge him alongside the likes of witter or calzaghe because he genuinely sought to test himself against the best he could, he got rid of warren, and he made it happen 4 fights later.

 

Well, I want Hatton to win, and I like the guy, but I'm not a fan of his, as such. I was just saying that calling him a "solid contender" was stupid thing to say really, given that he is the linear champ at 140 and a P4P elite.

Hatton's record is nowhere near as good as Hopkins or Pacquaio. Mayweather and Mosley's is also clearly better that Hatton's. JMM's is about equal, or maybe only slightly better. Hatton's resume is solid, good, not great, but with 3 more fight left in his career, against top opponent, it may well be great when all is said and done.

The win over Tszyu was a great one, Castillo was a good win. Malignaggi was the No1 contender, Collazo was a belt holder (although Hatton got a gift - I thought Collazo won), then there are solid Top Ten guys like Phillips, Tackie and Lazcano on there I suppose.

 

If your a good fighter it dont really matter were you come from. The problem that many of the European fighters have had in the past is the lack of high level sparring. I recall some years back when Many of the European fans were hyping the **** out of Shea Neary, Neary's people got Mickey Ward to come in a spar with him, Wards reaction was that Neary wasnt very good. That pissed off Neary and his people so they made a mistake and signed to fight Ward, thinking that they would teach him a lession..well we all know how that turned out.

As a whole good fighters can come from any where. I think what has held European fighters back in the past has been as I said the lack of sparring, but now that they are getting great sparring and high level trainers they are doing much better.