By Anthony Coleman, photo by Rob De Lorenzo – GBP – It is fair to say that 2007 has been one of the best years for a boxing fan in recent memory. We witnessed the emergence of talented new world champs like Kelly Pavlik, Jorge Linares, Nonito Donaire and Christian Mijares, and of course we were treated to a lot of great fights. To Calzaghe-Kessler, Miguel Cotto?s thrilling wins over Shane Mosley and Zab Judah, Katsidis-Earl, and of course Rafael Marquez and Israel Vazquez engaging in two epic battles it has been a hell of a year for a sport that is supposed to be on its last legs.
Now this weekend we have the last big fight of the year: Floyd Mayweather Jr. versus Ricky Hatton for the Welterweight Championship of the world. In my opinion this is the most important fight of the year.. No I don?t expect this fight to challenge Vazquez-Marquez II for fight of the year (in fact I think it has the high possibility to be a crap fight), yet in terms of boxing in the coming year much of the puzzle will be solved when the victor?s hand is raised on Saturday night. At this moment the Welterweight division is the most talked about division in all of boxing because of the talent that is running through it. You have pound-for-pound entrants in Cotto and the aforementioned Mayweather, tough dangerous fighters like Antonio Margarito and Paul Williams and one of the hardest punchers in the sport in Kermit Cintron. The question on the minds of boxing fans is whether or not any of these fighters will actually meet each other in the ring in 2k8, and Saturday night?s fight may actually give us clues if it would be a real possibility (especially if Hatton were to win). Yet that is something that should be thought about on Sunday morning, right now let us look at the combatants for this championship fight.
Going into contest Mayweather has been installed as the huge favorite. In fact many, like Yahoo?s Kevin Iole, is giving Hatton no chance of defeating Mayweather. To me that is kind of strange. It is not ridiculous that Mayweather is considered the favorite (in fact he should be regarded as the favorite). Hatton?s lone Welterweight fight was a razor thin points win over top ten contender Luis Collazo (the same Collazo who would drop a wide unanimous decision loss to Shane Mosley). But if you listen to some of the pundits it seems as if Hatton is playing the role of Buster Douglas when he was heading to Tokyo to face Tyson nearly 20 years ago (yes it has nearly been that long since the fight took place). Hatton is considered a top 10 to 15 pound-for-pound fighter in most publications so it should stand to reason that he may have a better than horrible shot to beat the ?Pretty Boy.? Plus if we looked at what both fighters bring to the table then you?ll see that the fight is a much closer matchup than many will lead you to believe it is.
