Hiring Mayweather was an odd one, I must say. First of all, I'd question whether he's any better a trainer than Billy Graham to be honest..... Hatton looked less sharp in both his fights under Floyd sr than he did in his later ones with Billy. Look at his track record - he completely disarmed De La Hoya from an all round boxer with a fearsome left hook into a plodding hybrid of a counter puncher and pressure fighter. His son - Roger is primarily responsible for Floyd's ability in the ring, coupled with enormous natural ability. In summary, Hatton's mistakes/things to do differently (in no order....) 1. The WBU reign of error 2. Sticking with the style that won him the Tszyu fight 3. Weight fluctuations 4. Believing his own hype post-Castillo 5. Firing Graham and hiring Floyd 6. Fighting like a clueless journeyman against Pac All in all it wouldn't have made that much of a difference to his overall standing but his record might have looked a bit better and his prime lasted longer.
Oh, and fighting Lazcano instead of Witter post-Floyd. Obviously Witter looked like a murderer in the Harris fight and Ricky was coming off a loss, but it would have been a great way to shove two fingers up at any criticism that was coming his way. Sillyman would have gladly bumped the Bradley/Castillo fight from final eliminator to ''eliminator'' status in return for the increased moola and let Hatton step in. Would have been a great British event, with Froch on the undercard in an eliminator of his own.
Why would he walk straight into a fight with Witter after getting stopped by Floyd? There isn't a fighter in the game who doesn't have a warm up fight after a heavy defeat.
^^^ That's not exactly true. Plus, there's warm up fight and dragging a body out of retirement for a fight. I'm not meaning to give Hatton any **** here, but Lazcano wasn't remotely world class at the time, he'd been out for over a year after a points loss to the average Vivian Harris - who was absolutely battered by Witter a few months later. It made both financial and boxing sense to do the fight there and then.
Losing to Pacquiao despite being ahead by a country mile. Actually I think Hatton had a good career. He lost to two ATG's, and had some decent fights before that. :good Hatton-Witter would have been epic a few years ago, and Hatton-DLH would have been an interesting one right at the end.
Possibly a culmination of over-eagerness to get inside and not listening to instructions. Hatton used to step up to range and impatienly fidget back and fourth looking for a spot to jump in at the opponent, but at times he became so preoccupied with that, that he neglected his own defense. I think he used to forget that the other guy was allowed to punch back, now this could of been curbed had he been someone who actually listened to his trainer, but what ever Hatton was told during the rounds used to go in one ear and out the other. Just listen to various interview he did over the years where by he would say stuff like...."yeah Billy was telling me that in the corner but I was still getting a bit gun ho trying to finish him", then look at him against Manny Pacquiao. It doesn't matter who would of trained Hatton, he simply didn't follow instructions well enough imo.
OK biggest mistakes aren't anything that's been mentioned (except maybe by Gooners). His biggest mistake was to never learn to keep his hands up and to rush in without any head movement, that and throwing wide lead left left hooks that were there to be countered. That was always going to see him get ko'd, Billy Graham or not. Mayweather tried to teach him defence but you can't teach an old dog new tricks That's because he was fed stiffs for years, that were too small, too slow, too old and couldn't hurt him. It taught him bad habits, habits Graham never ironed out