Pacquiao-Hatton: Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

To sell a fight, specially a big fight, there has to be some tension between the protagonists to add some sort of drama to the event. One has to be the hero and the other the villain.

The fight between Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton is now shaping up to be a barn burner, in terms of word war at the moment.

Floyd Mayweather Sr. vs Freddie Roach and Ricky Hatton vs Pacquiao,(?) or still vs Freddie Roach.

Freddie Roach has no fear taking on those two guys head on. He may have a the choir-boy looks but never runs out nasty words when engaged in battle.

The verbal war between Mayweather and Roach adds so much color to the event. He often comes to the rescue of his favorite fighter.

Pacquiao has never bad mouthed any of his opponents. He doesn’t talk trash. He lets his fists do the talking come fight night.

He shows respect to his counterparts but not fear, a trait of a noble warrior. In the battlefield he’s as bad as an animal. His performances are unbelievable. You can compare his opponents’ faces to patsies after the fight.

If his fights were a street brawl, you can call the police and charge him with assault with the way he reorders their facial structures. Barrera, Larios, Solis, Morales, Diaz and De la Hoya can borrow anybody’s face just to be patched up even from a dog.

Now Ricky Hatton should watch out. He and his team are making bold statements through the media on how they’ll going to dismantle Pacquiao while Manny keeps his mouth shut. I understand their trying to sell the fight but they should pick the words that they say.

Who knows, Pacman’s just taking all the rage that he needs and pours everything in the ring. Let me rephrase, everybody knows that Pacman pours everything in the ring. Bad news Hatton!

My prediction in this fight is that Pacquiao will defeat Hatton between rounds six and nine. Hatton’s chance of winning is only via knockout via lucky flush punch.

As I have observed during Hatton fights,  his “coming forward-two punch combo-clinch” strategy will never be effective against the Filipino. Pacquiao’s too intelligent of a fighter not to know Hatton’s tendencies. And Roach surely knows that too.

They may plot their way of fighting but he’ll just revert to own style. As the saying goes “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”