MANNY PACQUIAO DEMOLISHES RICKY HATTON: Shows Floyd Mayweather Senior How To Achieve Success in Under Six Minutes

Posted on | May 2, 2009 | 2 Comments

By: Rich Bergeron

Somewhere in the boxing world Floyd Mayweather, Sr. is sitting down to a nice fat meal of roast crow. All the verbal jabs in the world couldn’t stop Freddie “The Joke Coach” Roach’s most promising protege Manny Pacquiao from treating Floyd Sr.’s best prospect Ricky Hatton like a punching dummy Saturday night in Las Vegas.

It took just one second under six minutes for Pacquiao to completely pick apart his enemy with picture perfect and potent jabs and hooks. He landed over 70 punches to Hatton’s 18 over the two rounds.

Hatton looked OK early in the first, landing some great hooks to Pac-man’s ribs in close. Pac Man was sloppy at first, but as soon as he found his target range, he took advantage of his superior speed, power, and accuracy. A right hook first dropped Hatton for a few seconds, but he appeared to be OK, but Pacquiao wanted a quick night and let Hatton know over the closing seconds, knocking him down again before the break with a series of lefts and rights as Hatton was backing into a corner.

Other than a few short inside hooks and a ringing straight right or left here and there, Hatton really didn’t look good at all. He came out strong again in the second only to completely wilt again. Pacquiao’s defensive shell could not be penetrated, and he walked through every punch that did land. There may be no other fighter in the history of the sport who has ever been as strong and as fast as Manny Pacquiao is right now. HBO Announcer Jim Lampley appropriately pointed out that the final knockout blow, coming just a split second after the 10 second mark of the second round, was probably the best ever in Pac-Man’s career. As far as sheer power goes. the punch might have knocked out any fighter. Pacquiao, probably with a lot of help from Roach, has absolutely mastered the left and right hook and knew those punches would be key to demolishing Hatton.

Ricky Hatton has never before been so incredibly ruined in a fight from start to finish, and over the course of two rounds his face was battered, beaten, and bruised with punches that were so fast you could barely see or count them. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the CompuBox folks. Pacquiao strung combos together beautifully and targeted every punch to land with a purpose.

The question most people were probably asking after this fight, especially the boxing fans who wished it was more competitive:

“Who the Hell thought this would be a good idea?”

On our weekly radio show Tony “The Tornado” Penecale (congrats for getting on the winning prediction track again, Tony) and I discussed a half dozen more intriguing opponents for Manny. Shane Mosley, Juan Manuel Marquez, and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. now are all viable future prospects for Pac-Man. Whoever stands in front of Manny is going to have a very tough time, no matter what. I think he could even take Valuev on a good day. Floyd Mayweather may be back, but it might not be for long enough to put Pacquiao to the ultimate pound for pound test. If Pacquiao keeps busting big heads like he’s been doing, Floyd may never sign the deal, ala Antonio Margarito in Floyd’s earlier days.

One thing is certain in the wake of this fight, though: it is going to take an incredible effort to dethrone the Pac-Man from the pound for pound throne. There may not be another man alive today who can pull it off.