There were those who thought Arturo Gatti had a chance against Floyd Mayweather. Remember? June 25, 2005? “Thunder vs. Lightning,” big pay-per-view sales and a sold-out Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City? Well, things didn’t turn out so well for the “Thunder” part of the equation. Mayweather punished poor Gatti to the point of it being a public execution, a bloodletting and a blowout of epic proportions.

A little more than two years later, there are those who think the showdown between welterweight champion and pound-for-pound king Mayweather (38-0 with 24 KOs) against world junior welterweight champion Ricky Hatton (43-0 with 31 KOs), Saturday in Las Vegas will essentially be Mayweather-Gatti 2. That all those 6,000 English fans expected to turn the MGM Grand into Wembley West are fooling themselves with false hopes and too many pints of Guinness. Possibly. But not likely.  Hatton, the pride of Manchester, England, and a man who is as fierce as they come, has a real chance here.
 
A LEGIT CHALLENGE
Say what you want about the “Hitman’s” mauling, clutching style. It is not the most pleasing to watch. The action is choppy, and the exchanges are often suffocated.  It can make for a frustrated viewer. But it can make Hatton opponents more frustrated. Frustrated to the point they abandon their gameplan from sheer exasperation. Want an example? Check out the look on Kostya Tszyu’s face in 2005, as his back was pinned to the ropes and his flanks were being whacked furiously by Hatton’s sledgehammer body punches.

Tszyu, one of the big bangers of his era, didn’t have a clue as to how to solve the furious puzzle in front of him. He tried to land his homerun shots, but Hatton was so quick and active in moving the fight inside that Tszyu couldn’t get any extension on his blows. And he wasn’t strong enough to back Hatton up and take the fight to the middle of the ring. So he was forced to fight backing up all night and, eventually, he was driven straight into survival mode.
By the end, he couldn’t get out of that ring fast enough. The Hatton attack was so debilitating that Tszyu couldn’t bring himself to carry on for one more round.

So he quit on his stool before the start of the 12th. And, really, you couldn’t blame him. He was simply overwhelmed. Besides Hatton’s surprising quickness, he is an underrated defensive fighter. The things that make him so maddening to watch are precisely the elements that make him hard to hit.  He subtly holds arms to prevent opponents from sustaining an attack. He walks forward to mute onslaughts. He uses body angles, spins and creative herky-jerky head movements to avoid harm and, most of the time, he escapes fights completely unscathed. Does that sound like Arturo Gatti to you?

Add to that a workrate that would embarrass a flyweight, and the best body punching in the business (just ask Jose Luis Castillo), and you have one formidable challenge for Mr. Pound-for-Pound.
 
GOING AGAINST GREATNESS
Mayweather, though, deserves his status as boxing’s best fighter. His career has been stunningly easy – even though he has fought the best fighters of four weight divisions. His unblemished list of victories reads like a who’s who of the 130-154 pound divisions over the past decade: Genaro Hernandez, Angel Manfredy, Diego Corrales, Jesus Chavez, Castillo (twice, albeit once controversially), Gatti, Zab Judah, Carlos Baldomir and Oscar De La Hoya.

Like the greats of other sports – Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Tiger Woods – the Grand Rapids, Michigan native knows how to win. He doesn’t always look superhuman – especially now that he is fighting 17 pounds beyond his natural weight – but he always, always gets the job done. The aforementioned Gatti fight was a masterpiece, but he has also delivered magnificently against Hernandez, Manfredy and Corrales.

Last May’s De La Hoya fight showed how he can manipulate the scoring by punching in spurts. Not to mention the fact that he was fighting a much bigger man – a fellow multi-division champ who had once fought as high as middleweight.

Like him or hate him – and it’s safe to say that most people find him obnoxious, given his penchant for playing the bad guy in the HBO 24/7 series - he is a winner, pure and simple. And, this time, he is going up against a man who is shorter and smaller. A man who hasn’t come close to fighting his quality of opponent. And a man who struggled mightily the last time he tested the dangerous 147-pound waters.
 
AND THE WINNER IS….
Hatton will enjoy success along the ropes. He will pound Mayweather’s body more than it has been pounded before. And he will use the blueprint that Castillo used in 2002, when he almost beat Mayweather with a steady, determined dose of pressure and body work.

But Mayweather will have his share of success in getting some distance between he and his opponent, accepting Hatton’s punches without concern, and, in the late rounds, landing the harder, more telling shots because of his still-amazing hand and foot speed.

He will also stand tall through the vaunted Hatton body attack – mostly because he is underrated in the strength and toughness departments - and apply his own tricks on the inside.
It won’t be emphatic. And the pro-Hatton crowd will boo lustily when the verdict is announced. But Mayweather will figure out a way to win. He always does. Prediction: “Pretty Boy” by unanimous decision. 

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