Hatton's improvement and Graham/Mayweather Sr

Good post.

I feel that they got complacent...... having scaled the mountain (so to speak) in defeating Tszyu, and having come up with an excellent, albeit reckless gameplan in order to do so, they simply decided that it would work against anybody.

Instead of actually sticking to those tactics, they went one step further, trying to KO each opponent in the first round. See Maussa and Collazo for this especially (Urango being the exception) - after decking Collazo in the 1st ten seconds he punched himself out pretty much by the end of the 2nd round..... rather than coming up with a gameplan to attempt to take away certain elements from their opponent.

In the Collazo fight he was being hit with the sneaky left all night, it was only the KD and the 11th round, together with the sporadic use of his straight right that got him over the line.

I also felt they underestimated Mayweather's ability to FIGHT. Everybody knew that he was a great boxer, but they didn't study enough tapes of Mayweather to realise this. They simply watched the 1st Castillo fight and the DLH one, and decided that pressure was the way to go. Obviously, trying to box Mayweather would have failed, but after the first three rounds all we saw was him lunging forward in straight lines and being picked off, before being manhandled and outfought later on.

In the later Graham years, we saw Hatton become one-handed.

For me, Floyd sr didn't make that much of an improvement. All he did was get him back to the style he used against Phillips and Tackie - always aggressive, but thinking.... using feignts, drawing the lead, countering with rights rather than lunging lefts....

This camp might have improved him further.... all will be revealed I guess :good

 

Mayweathers approach is completely different to that of Graham eg.the body bag vs Floyds method of padwork.Floyd said on 24/7 that Hatton hardly knew how to hit pads when he first took him.
Mayweather is defensively minded and when you can see his padwork he focuses on head movement and slipping/blocking punches aswell of offence.There was no evidence of this in training videos I have seen involving Graham.The body belt just encouraged them lunging attacks to body and head rather than using a jab to set up attacks-we saw shades of this in the Malignaggi fight though I'm not sure that fight is a good way of measuring his improvement given the way Malignaggi fought.

To answer the original question,I think Hatton was probably going through the motions a little and needed extra motivation like you said (Tsyzu,castillo are good examples)

 

Another factor, as Scurla will no doubt point out.... is the level of opposition he was facing.

I don't think he is particularly heavy handed...... plenty of the guys in the WBU days were like startled rabbits, and were therefore blown away by his ferocity. In the Phillips and Tackie fights we saw, for the most part, a boxing exhibition in wide points victories - that showed he had the ability to adapt to the opponent, as you point out.

However, when you are facing the likes of Mayweather, they will study the style in-depth.... not saying the others didn't, but clearly none of them (Tszyu, Mayweather excepted) had the tools to be able to deal with what Hatton brought to the table. This is clearly evident in the Malignaggi fight.... midway through the 2nd stanza you were waiting for the finish - it was over as a contest. Smart cutting off of the ring, feints, the lot - only held up by constant holding by Paulie.

Floyd sr is definitely the kind to study the opponent, I hear he had Lee Beard working southpaw pads with Hatton very early on - I would very much doubt that was the case for previous encounters with lefties. They did rely on his fitness to bring him through, which is fine for the most part, but there is always someone fitter, no matter who you are!

It was something Rob McCracken eluded to in an issue of Boxing Monthly, basically saying a typical American trainer is much better than a British one - mainly because they work on technical aspects of boxing.... rather than getting them fit as a flea and telling them to throw a million punches.

 

The key for Hatton in this fight is showing the improvements in the ring which he is making under Mayweather Sr in the gym, if any at this late stage of his carrer. Can Hatton adjust if things are not going his way, plan B?

I do get the feeling that Hatton made the weight better this time round, maybe Mayweather's advise is working about his lifestyle between fights.

 

I see...



Sorry, good post all in all though.

 

I remember him saying afterwards that he felt Hatton was useless..... perhaps Hatton called him bluff and said 'if you think you can do any better....

 

Graham bought into the unstoppable Hatton hype just like Hatton did. It's your trainers job to play devils advocate, give you some perspective etc Graham didn't do that. Graham got Hatton in great shape and Kayes made Hatton extremely strong. However this totally overlooked what Hatton was missing - a sense of range, timing, defence, combinations, not continously hugging, a jab, gameplan, accuracy etc

Graham betrayed the sweet science. Hatton is a physical specimen - quick feet, strong, powerful and with a strong mind.

Graham would look at Hattons record and say he lost once and justify everything else that went wrong. He never looked at Hatton stop body punching, getting hit too much etc

Dare I say it, Hatton was a better fighter technically when he was an amateur. Hatton looked to get worse. His technique became horrible as his hands dropped and he was jumping all over the place.

When Hatton trained and ripped that belt he got in great shape but like I said earlier - where was the science? Every shot was woefully inaccurate cos he couldn't miss.

Hatton is naturally an ferocious fighter. Mayweather is trying to add science. I only fear that Hatton's nature will overcome his nurture. I hope by now Mayweathers nurturing has overcome Hattons natural full steam ahead approach.

 

Graham told Hatton in a number of fights to cool it, to get back to his boxing

Hatton didn't listen


However, while I think Hatton became much more 'streetwise' in the ring after Tszyu (Castillo in particular being a great, sharp, crafty performance), it looked like he wasn't working much on technique

Not surprising given that his camps were almost exclusively dedicated to dropping weight and getting fit after 3-4 months of doing nothing

So in many ways I don't think you can lay the blame on Graham, Hatton himself got complacent until the Floyd rude awakening


When you look at how Pacquaio has studied the craft and developed in recent years, it just shows what can be done with particularly good raw ingredients, like Hatton had

 

has anyone ever considered that with the help of mayweather hatton could actually leave himself more vulnerable, i have seen hatton working the pads with mayweather and he seems way more open when throwing the jab as he is trying to get too much speed behind it and his right hand tends to float away from the face area, im sure as soon as hatton gets rocked he will revert back to his original style, over the last month hatton has gone on about his size difference but i think he is gonna try and box pac to start off with use his foot and hand speed that he has been raving about but this will really play into pacs hands, hatton needs to rush pac and he needs to be able to work hard for 12 rounds like he did against collazo (even though i thought he lost) although hatton showed great balls in that fight, if graham was more of a fitness coach then perhaps hatton would of been better off with graham for this fight, thats assuming he is not in as good shape as we all know pacs workrate is second to none

 

hattons become a better technical boxer under floyd but his technique hasn't improved at all, not yet anyway.

 

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