Hatton and his delusions of grandeur

Definitely a lot of smoke and mirrors about Hatton's class as a fighter. I just think he had that one great night where he caught Tszyu at the right time on the right night, he performed the absolute best he ever could which he never replicated again in a match that stylistically favours him (Tszyu lost to Vince Phillips).

Apart from that he'd just be your average fighter operating at world level, albeit with a huge fanbase and marketability.

 

The WBU was no world title, even when Hatton had it he used to talk about fighting for "a real world title" in the future.

 

It would have been nice if he fought for a 'real world title' a bit sooner instead of mugging people off.

 

Its one of the easiest careers to class you can get. No one makes claims he's an ATG.

Decent but not great world class wins, clearly beaten when stepping up to elite level = solid world class fighter.

Your expression, "average fighter operating at world level" ticked me.....thats just another way of saying "world class fighter" but you couldn't bring yourself to even give him that credit!!

 

It's not that simple Gaz. There isn't just 'world class fighters' and all-time greats. Some fighters that are world class are better than others, quite clearly. But they're not great. For example, we can use someone that Hatton decided to avoid. Miguel Cotto. He's better and greater than Hatton, but is he great...not a chance. Hatton was pretty run of the mill, the only thing that propelled him was that win over Tszyu and with Parris' involvement there are are a couple of ?? hanging over that.

 

Mate, theres ?? hanging over every one of his fights if you listen to some of the <ahems!> around here. Every fighter he every fought was either old, shot or **** (even the ones that were current and future world title holders!) and now it even turns out he didn't even really want fight Pac and Mayweather......FFS, you couldn't make it up.

He beat Zoo in a rough fight, thats boxing. Even you've got to admit he gets pulled up for things by people on here that happen all the time in boxing. If we are talking Cotto how about the body slam that every one thought was great against Clottey?

Yes, theres levels of world class fighter buts theres really no need to **** about with semantics trying to word your phrases in an attempt to give Hatton the bare minimum of credit. He was a world class fighter. Simple.

 

I don't think there are that many ?? over his wins except the Tszyu and Collazo ones. I mean in the way that they played out.

The Tszyu fight he should have been reigned in. His mauling was on another level and then he threw in some insane rabbit punches. He needed overall reigning in but either Parris had no control or didn't want to have control. Ricky 'Fritzie' hatton should have been his nickname after that.

Collazo I'm still not entirely convinced he beat, but we need a whole other thread for that.

 

think he's achieved a certain greatness tbh.

3 weight world champ.

admittedly titles have less importance nowadays.

he ain't far away with a few more big wins. :bbb

 

I don't think Cotto would be top 100.

 

The Collazo fight is a case in point. Is that a robbery or a clear loss for Hatton??

(And why no threads about Nigel Benns mauling and rabbit punching?)

 

Trick question? Take your pick.

Benn wasn't active when we posted on this forum. It's natural we talk more about active fighters.

 

It wasn't a trick question mate, I worded it badly. I meant could you ever call that fight a robbery or a clear loss (as its been called in this thread), even if you thought Collazo won? It was a close fight that Hatton got the decision in, we see closer fights and worse decisions nearly every week.

(BTW we both had that fight 114-113 either way)

Thats true but the fact remains that Hatton is being held up to unrealistic standards where his boxing and opponents are concerned. Again, you see stuff in fights every week that people thought Hatton should be DQ'd for.

 

:good

 

We certainly see worse decisions every week in British rings. Yet when we question these decisions we're told that they're not robberies and there is no corruption involved because the BBBoC would not bother to fix fights in a 6x3

All I ever said was I'm not sure Hatton won that fight and remain unconvinced, so ??. I'm not going mental over it.

I think we see individual incidents in fights every week similar to what Hatton did. I'm not sure we ever see anyone with his overall consistency and body of work including constant holding, low blows and rabbit punching. Especially the Tszyu fight, he was somewhere near his pinnacle. The Urango one was pretty god awful too for holding.

 

Definitely.

Haye's a rabbit puncher and barely anybody mentions it. Benn was as you mentioned.

I was watching some Lewis fights the other day and he was an animal. The amount of times he'd hold the head down and then smash the opponents face in was unreal. Nobody slags him off for it when mentioning his wins.