Hatton Castillo Analysis

First of all, Ricky Hatton can only fight who is in front of him, he clearly expected this fight to be alot more difficult than it was, and his start proved that, there were some good things about hatton, deffo one of his best performances in a while. He fights at a very high tempo and his lead hook was nice, hatton clearly has some degree of boxing skills, he mixes up his right hand with the hook to the body very well. The knockout punch itself was a good one, castillo never saw it, he moved his elbow out wide thinking his ribs were covered and a result was looking away from the punch, hatton simply picked his sort and came around the elbow with a nice shot. There was no fix, it was a good shot. Hatton fought well, good tempo, some outstanding body work in between, this was deffo the ricky hatton who we used to watch on frank warren cards. But there are a few problems, the holding i dont like, there was lots of it, so much so the Harold Lederman called him "The Hook then hug man" Emmanuel Steward (an idiot) also talked about hatton's holding. Its a tactic, a smothering tactic, his defence just isnt good enough so he has to smother, i say if it suits him, he should do it, me personally, i dont like it, but its very effective. He is STILL vulnerable to silly shots because he keeps throwing in the range of the opponent, which is something he needs to look at, perhaps pick his shots more. I watched Castillo-Mayweather one a few weeks ago, this was NOT the same castillo, the HBO commentators were in complete agreement with that, he was a shot fighter and to me he never thought he could beat hatton after the first 30 seconds of that fight, im not hating on hatton, but no way was castillo anywhere near his prime, he was slow, sluggish and lazy and it became obvious to me after round one he had little chance of going 12 rounds. Hatton weighed 149 for this fight, so he CAN make 147 no matter what he says, thats where he needs to be, the holding tactic is key to his success because it keeps him in range, but doesnt allow them to hit him much, then on the break off he will lead with a nice hook to the body. He definately impressed me, guys, he does have some boxing skills, and tactically he is actually quite well thought out sometimes. On mayweather? No. My opinion is still the same, if mayweather can avoid being tied up its a bad style match up for hatton, mayweather loves fighting on the back foot, hatton's defence from the outside is very leaky, if hatton cant close the distance and hurt mayweather straight away, he will probably get potshotted. But other than it was a good performance, i think some of the Americans will like it.