(Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
I’m setting a precedent. The first Brit in the history of boxing to admit that Ricky Hatton is one of the most overrated fighters ever.
This is a guy who had 38 pro fights against garbage opposition, before Frank Warren managed to find him an ageing name, who he felt he could pull a number on.
Don’t get me wrong; Kosta Tszyu was a great fighter. But the guy was 35, and had only had one fight in the previous two years. Totally inactive because of injury.
Tszyu was handing out a boxing lesson in the bout for 7-8 rounds, ahead on all cards, until he suddenly remembered he was 35, injury prone, inactive, and inevitably gassed to Hatton pressure.
When the bell for the 11th rang, Ricky was down by five rounds on one card. Three on another. His only avenue to victory was KO. He delivered. But let’s not forget that he was thoroughly outboxed for most of the fight. And maybe father time got him off the hook.
After jumping from eighth to first in the rankings, with one win, he turned down big money offers from both Mayweather and Cotto for unification bouts. To take on Carlos Maussa. A fighter Cotto destroyed only 18 months earlier.
Still, Hatton could now call himself a two belt champion, and number one in the division. However, he had little intention of ever risking this mantle against any of the legit divisional No. 2s.
Mayweather moved up to 147, after team Hatton made it pretty clear that he was never going to get a shot at the ring title.
Cotto sat at No. 2 in the division for a year before realising the same thing.
Junior Witter was No. 2 for three years without getting a unification fight. Something he had grown used to, having been systematically ducked by Hatton at almost every level of boxing during the previous decade.
All the while Ricky was offering title shots to Carlos Maussa, Juan Urango, and Jose Luis Castillo. None of which were even ranked in the divisional top five.
Still calling himself the unquestioned “man” of the division.
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