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Here's my take...say we reward Ricky's mostly ineffective aggression in the 2nd and give him the round on workrate, despite eating the cleaner shots...and we give him the 5th, a round in which his greatest success was preventing Floyd from doing any work...the 3rd could be open to interpretation, but Floyd steals it to my mind, based on his more effective work near the end, a straight right and slashing left which opened the cut and a pair of nice uppercuts representing the cleanest work in the inside exchanges.
Being competetive in a fight surely requires you to be enjoying some measure of literal success? When your only success in a fight is throwing yourself on your opponent and smothering your own work as much as his, you know you're hurting. As soon as it became apparent Floyd had the strength and guile to stand up to the bullyboy stuff inside (pretty early on), there was only one outcome...Hatton = fucked.
In a pure boxing sense, Pac-Hatton shouldn't be a 50/50 fight...Pac's the better boxer. If Ricky elects to bring that mauling inside fight to Pac, though, I expect Manny to struggle with it...but I see Ricky barging, as opposed to boxing, his way in.
Which goes back to your original point...where were Ricky's jab, head movement, angles when he needed them most, tangling with the previous P4P Picasso? Sporadic, neglected, then abandoned altogether. Against Kostya before that, he got hit charging in, and when he would come in behind a jab it was with negligible success, his rewards coming from the ensuing clinches...if Hatton brings the comparatively measured pace he brought to Paulie, I think he gets shredded. He needs to go hell for leather.
Being competetive in a fight surely requires you to be enjoying some measure of literal success? When your only success in a fight is throwing yourself on your opponent and smothering your own work as much as his, you know you're hurting. As soon as it became apparent Floyd had the strength and guile to stand up to the bullyboy stuff inside (pretty early on), there was only one outcome...Hatton = fucked.
In a pure boxing sense, Pac-Hatton shouldn't be a 50/50 fight...Pac's the better boxer. If Ricky elects to bring that mauling inside fight to Pac, though, I expect Manny to struggle with it...but I see Ricky barging, as opposed to boxing, his way in.
Which goes back to your original point...where were Ricky's jab, head movement, angles when he needed them most, tangling with the previous P4P Picasso? Sporadic, neglected, then abandoned altogether. Against Kostya before that, he got hit charging in, and when he would come in behind a jab it was with negligible success, his rewards coming from the ensuing clinches...if Hatton brings the comparatively measured pace he brought to Paulie, I think he gets shredded. He needs to go hell for leather.
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