Probably correct, though we'll never know for absolute certain. Lara is a better and bigger fighter than Hatton. Lara was an awful choice of sparring. He's nothing like Pacman. How are you going to train for a smaller, quicker, aggressive southpaw by fighting a bigger, slower and more conservative boxer/puncher? Idiots.
Lara was A sparing partner......the problem with fighting the best in world is that its usually pretty hard to get sparing partners that compare well with the guy you are fighting.
If Hatton had of being kicking the **** out of his sparring partners you'd be complaining they were uncompetitve....
Maybe he asked for "that good Cuban prospect", meaning the small, fast and powerful Gamboa, and instead some twat got the big guy Lara in instead.
The elusive quality they were supposed to be looking for is competitive. i.e. not getting black eyes, on the verge of KO'd, or slapping a road sweeper about.
You have me at a disadvantage, I've never seen the sparring in question so I've no idea if Hatton was on the verge of being KO'd. Was it as serious as the time he was on the verge of being KO'd against Lascano? Or not as serious as that horrific brush with defeat?
It was a bad choice of sparring any which way you look at it. The guy was too big for Hatton full stop, nevermind for facing Pac who also presents completely different stylistic problems. Who were his other sparring partners? And well..if he got bashed up and nearly KO'd like against Lazcano presumably Howard Foster would not be overseeing sparring. They would have just sent young Lara home and probably withheld his monies. Or as one particular poster likes to say, "admin error" :blurp
As I understand it Lara, who was fighting on the same bill, did a couple of spars with Hatton. I don't think whatever masterplan Mayweather snr had devised (and Hatton ignored) hinged on Lara emulating Pacs style. Hatton had 2 or 3 other sparing partners (who's name I forget) who were 16-2 type fighters, nothing exceptional and I don't know what styles they could present to Hatton.
You are assuming they ever had a plan. The plan sounded to me like "Rick is bigger n um..stronger...n..yeah he'll whoop de little guy" It was poor from top to bottom, no professionalism.