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Bert Sugar's Pre-fight Analysis
BERT SUGAR'S PRE-FIGHT ANALYSIS
by Bert Sugar with Steve Small
STRENGTHS OF BOTH FIGHTERS
FLOYD MAYWEATHER
- Mayweather is bigger, taller and has a longer reach than Hatton.
- Floyd is a clean and accurate puncher, possessing the fastest hands in boxing and throws ever punch in the book--and even some not found in any boxing instruction book yet published.
- A smart, tactical fighter, Floyd has unusual defensive skills--some say a "safety first" style--tending to lean back, away from his opponent's punches, making them reach for him and thus enabling him to counter with his right.
- A very underrated body puncher, Floyd is extremely accurate on the inside, especially with hooks to the body.
RICKY HATTON
- Hatton's style is a different style than Floyd is used to, not left jab versus left jab, but a style that has him boring into his opponents, planting his head into their shoulder and mauling them inside.
- Hatton's constant pressure and "million-mile-an-hour" work rate has enabled him to get inside and rough up his opponents, tiring them out in the late rounds.
- Ricky possesses an entire arsenal of punches, including a devastating left hook to the body, which may work against Floyd.
WEAKNESSES OF BOTH FIGHTERS
MAYWEATHER
- Floyd likes to control the pace of the fight but may have trouble doing so with Hatton's "Everready Bunny" relentless work rate.
- He has had difficulty in the past with a full-gale attack like that Hatton will throw at him--for references, see his first fight with Jose Luis Castillo.
- Floyd needs space to throw combinations. (But then again, as some observers have noted, "When was the last time you saw Floyd throw a two-or three-punch combination?") But Hatton's "damn-the-torpedo-full-speed-ahead" charges might deny him that space.
- Floyd may have underestimated Hatton, having taken time off from training to do a star-turn on "Dancing With the Stars," and is already looking ahead to see what other fights he can pencil in on his dance card.
HATTON
- A natural junior welter--or, as they call it in Britain, a "light" welter--Hatton showed some lessening of his skills in his only fight in the welterweight ranks looking, at best, ordinary against Luis Collazo, tiring and being rocked in the later rounds.
- Believing that his offense is his best defense, Hatton at times has been reckless in his defense and has proven susceptible to straight punches down the middle when he lunges in.
- Ricky's aggressiveness is more mauling and brawling than boxing, getting inside where he can hold and smother his opponent. Against Kostya Tszyu he got away with it, compliments of the referee, but, depending upon the ref in his fight with Mayweather, he may not be able to get away with it again.
- Hatton barely fights at all from the outside, preferring to stage the fight on the inside on a square of the ring no larger than a linen napkin.
WHAT EACH FIGHTER MUST DO TO WIN
MAYWEATHER
- Floyd cannot afford to wait and look for Hatton to come to him in order to set up his counters, something he's done in his last couple of fights. To do so will invite trouble and make it a more difficult fight for him.
- Because Hatton tends to stand straight up before he mounts his charge, Mayweather must jab and step over, whether to the left or right, making Hatton stop and start his attack all over again.
- Floyd cannot afford to be caught in the corner of the ring, but must try to keep Hatton out in the middle of the ring and on the end of his punches.
HATTON
- Because he knows he cannot outbox Floyd, Hatton must try to make it a brawling, mauling, almost ugly match, going to the head, the body--where Floyd is most susceptible--and even on the soles of Floyd's shoes, if necessary.
- Hatton is predictable, almost in a Lawrence Welk-ish a-one-and-a-two and a grab repetition where, in close, he tries to rough up his opponent. Against Mayweather, he must vary his attack, throwing punches from the outside as well as from the inside to keep Floyd on the defensive.
- Ricky must dictate the pace of the fight, especially in the early rounds when Floyd seems more interested in parsing the style of his opponent than fighting him.
Bert Randolph Sugar is the co-author of "My View from the Corner" with legendary trainer Angelo Dundee, now in bookstores.
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