I was talking to a friend about this, and I think he was right on. Before the fight, I asked "How do you think this fight will have to go for Floyd to be considered amongst the ATGs for sure?" and he said "Hatton will have to effectively pressure him quite a while, Floyd only benefits if Hatton makes it a fairly close fight." This doesn't make much sense though, does it? Hatton's pressure bothered Floyd in the early rounds, but what if it didn't? What if Floyd used better lateral movement, slipped to the side, and just landed right hand leads to Hatton coasting to a boring 12 round UD? It would have been even clearer still, after that hypothetical performance, that Floyd outclassed Hatton, but it wouldn't raise Floyd's stock one iota. The main point is this. Beating very good fighters in an overwhelmingly convincing fashion is not necessarily enough to make a fighter great. There is a point where your skill is so overwhelmingly dominant that it merely becomes a flaw in your opponent, no matter how good your actual opponent is. Great fights make great fighters, and that means that your opponent has to give you something that is difficult to beat, not merely that he is also capable of dominating most of his competition. Bernard Hopkins had this problem. Roy Jones had this problem. Roy Jones fought Hopkins and he fought Toney and BOTH are HOF worthy and he absolutely destroyed them both, but it was not enough for fans. If Hopkins or Toney had better showings, if they made a really really tough fight out of it, oddly enough, Roy Jones would be MORE idolized than he is now for what really happened. Easy decision for Jones. Anyways, if Floyd moves on to fight Cotto or whoever, it will be odd that if he beats Cotto like he beat Baldomir (and, btw, as boring as it was, Floyd's win over Baldomir was perhaps the most dominant win I have ever seen in a live 12 round fight) his stock won't rise nearly as high as if Cotto gives him a lot of trouble. Just something to think about.
Jones never destroyed Hopkins. Up until quite a while Hopkins was considered to have given Jones his toughest fight. I think Jones was better than Mayweather but he was never as complete a fighter.
