By Patrick Kehoe

Boxing looks to prove it still can offer up preeminent sporting warfare as Mexico’s Jose Luis Castillo readies to square up against England’s Ricky Hatton at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. Both men are hitters, who throw more than necessary to lay down dominating patterns of fire. Both men pride themselves on being tough in the key moments, survival of the fittest a quality innate to their concepts of the brutal trade they bring with relish to the ring. If boxing fans were mildly disappointed by Oscar De La Hoya and Jermain Taylor during their most recent ring outings, never fear, Ricky and Jose are almost here.

Do we need to mention that the WBO light welterweight and the WBC’s International jr. welterweight championship will be on the line? If not, we should note that heading into the contest a precarious balance of predictable competence mixes with understated vulnerabilities; both fighters, though they are time tested commando types, have shown that the compacted density of their boxing flintiness has begun to weather, ready to chip off under undue pressure, perhaps? Hatton failed to make the grade at welterweight and Castillo succumbed to the semi-conscious, exhausted onslaught of Diego Corrales in their first classic encounter in May, 2005.

The self defined “Hitman” Hatton has looked more the ambling angler than a predatory assassin in his last two outings against Brooklyn resident Luis Collazo and the rangy Columbian Juan Urango. Hatton fancied himself the boxing sage against the two welterweights, his top end fitness fading down the championship stretch. Rationalize his slack performance and point out a lack of absolute prep time, if you must; suffice it to say, Hatton found out something akin to a margin call as to his limits in winning those two welterweight encounters.

Not since his conquest of jr. welterweight legend Kostya Tszyu has Hatton taken to his opponent with meaningful nastiness. His counter hitting sledgehammers melted the efficient resistance Tszyu had greatly predicated his championship career upon. Admittedly, both Collazo and Urango are campaigning welterweights, a division that Hatton thought to conquer, but found that particular professional terrain most inhospitable. So, he’s decided to dehydrate back down to 140 pounds, jr. welterweight, no matter the dictates of his nearly 29 year old body, no matter how many jars with the lads he had to deny himself at dad’s pub.

And here we note the key element of physical advantage as far as Team Castillo is concerned. They are of one mind in believing that because their man has moved up to the comfort of making 140 and Hatton is forcing himself down to the same weight threshold, it will be Jose Luis who will have the late round reserves in what should be a fight of attrition and brutalizing physicality. Having taken his weight down over the long term, Team Hatton confidently believe that they are again fighting at their prime weight margin, an absolute flash point where Hatton’s applied strength over taxing duration can maximize the jab spacing out hooks before grapping for position pulling, angling, driving home optimal hitting flourishes, his complete arsenal.

Right away we can see the knife edge Hatton’s strategically adopted, for better or worse, namely that old game of making weight at the contracted number, rehydrating to fight as a big little man. The game of cutting down to fight big reminds one of Jose Luis himself, for he’s made an entire career out of it at and around lightweight. Who could forget his rematch mugging of the late Diego Corrales, in their chilling rematch mockery of fair play? Nevertheless, Castillo matched up with Floyd Mayweather perhaps better than anyone besides Oscar De La Hoya during his lightweight prime, though losing, brilliantly and gallantly, might earmark one for grandeur but seldom greatness. A raging provocateur in the ring, often defying the punishment and guile arrayed against him, Castillo has stoically lasted through to consolations of title belts and making endurance over time his hallmark.

When he feels like saying what’s on his mind, Castillo doesn’t regard Hatton as a world class bad boy capable of handing out beatings. His most telling refrain leading up to the fight being, “I’ll grind him down.” Man against man – defining the simple parameters Castillo intends to establish in the very first round – Castillo can’t see Hatton being able to stand up to him. Hatton has heard that line before or variations on a common theme. To Hatton, talk like that is old news and he’s disproved it his entire professional career. Tough guys Eamonn Magee, Vince Phillips and Ben Tackie had to be knocked sideways about the ring before they collectively found out about Hatton on the matter of registering beatings.

Castillo sees Hatton as an undefeated fighter, in name only, one who has build his clean sheet CV far from the axis point of super fighters working out of America, until just recently, with the exception of that victory over a markedly past his best Kostya Tszyu. Castillo remains skeptical of Hatton’s over all quality, especially under the gun, when the big time fighters are unleashing their best. Drive home his point – that remains Castillo’s aim. He looks to chip and charge, blunt and burrow, blasting and bombarding the Englishman’s set and fire offensive flourishes. Don’t give the guy time and space! Team Castillo have been working on an inside fight plan to be executed against Hatton as often as possible.

Make the Englishman work for every inch, struggle to get free, keeping him in harm’s way, expending randomized energy just to get a fleeting respite. Get in his way often enough and you get in his head! They feel the key to taking down Hatton will be to negate his counter hitting left hook. Take away that punch and Hatton will have to mix longer on the inside and that’s where they want the extended exchanges to happen.

Team Hatton want the fight to materialize as flowing set pieces where their guy can really drive home hard counters behind a spicy jab, exiting by spinning off and reloading for rapid fire replays. Hammer and move off. Allow the closing Castillo to rush head long into the crossfire of combinations and make sure Hatton’s combination hitting can strafe Castillo at or near mid ring. If Castillo relishes a give and take along the ropes to smother Hatton’s combination counter bombing, then “The Hitman” will be eager to get off first, hooking hard in behind the jab and layering his head shots with some withering body work over the first half of the fight.

In a very real sense, one could estimate the relative carnage to be exchanged by looking at how both fighters intend to invest in body shots over the first third or even half of the fight. Kostya Tszyu admitted privately that Ricky Hatton’s ability to score to the body in the middle of exchanges was a major factor in the outcome of their famous June, 2005 contest at the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester. Never one to disregard an opponent’s body, Castillo openly asserts that working over Hatton, taking away his time and distance means getting to the Hatton body along the ropes, driving home the muscular momentum he intends to build round after round. Yes, the tactics are elemental and fall clearly into the categories that both men feel suits their natural advantages.

Of course, translating tactics into dominating embellishments while sustaining either tolerable defensive soundness or protracted momentum, that’s the difficult part. No wonder fighters fall back upon the tired and true, the reflex activity of their best fighting self. Ricky Hatton has slightly more mobility and technical adroitness with Castillo more the elemental man in motion capable of finding that encapsulating zeal for the extraordinary, almost as if by a miracle.

Against Diego Corrales, the first time around, there was no magic to be found for Castillo. Against Luis Collazo, Hatton seemed to be typing out a script he could not follow up as necessary action. In the case of Castillo and Corrales, there was a next time to put things right, one way or the other. In the case of Hatton and Collazo, it was better to try to find those green pastures just below, no matter the sacrifices, no matter the issues of morbidity and discipline against the dictates of the body. Castillo himself understands the dictates of the body, at 33, he offers promises against the dread and hardship required to keep him fit and capable of dominating by will and might.

You don’t have to examine both men too long to see the straining effort employed, the etiolating drain, of having to work so hard just to stay near where they have both been for so long, at the very top. Their bodies are reminding them of the consequences of the demands made upon them. At the weigh-in both men will embody desperation met, gaunt eyed and gnarling for invented vengeance to be dispensed.

The mind of a championship boxer denies just enough introspection to make the final athletic execution a means to a very necessary end.

Still, nothing right this moment could convince either Ricky Hatton or Jose Luis Castillo that they are destined for disaster or merely defeat. But all the signs are there, to be read and understood clear as day. For they have done their best to be capable of anything. Though those signs will only be useful reading in retrospective detailing, after the event of their encounter, after they alone, in the ring, have made the final determination as to who will have the final honour.

And if they are still fully capable and as willing as they might be, we might well remember this fight with awe.

Patrick Kehoe may be reached at pkehoe@telus.net