Story of the Day-Ricky Hatton vs Floyd Mayweather

Richard Hatton MBE (born October 6, 1978, in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England), is an English boxer. He is seen by many as one of the greatest British fighters of all-time and is ranked among the best pound for pound boxers in the world by Ring Magazine.

Hatton is a two-time IBF and IBO Light Welterweight Champion, having relinquished the IBF belt, only to step back down to the weight class and beat Juan Urango. He was the WBA Welterweight Champion, but relinquished this title on August 31, 2006.[3] Hatton is also the former WBU, WBA Light Welterweight Champion and WBC, WBA, WBO Inter-Continental Light Welterweight Champion.

Until December 8, 2007 he was undefeated (with a career record of 43 wins, 31 by KO) when Floyd Mayweather Jr stopped him in the 10th round of their encounter for the WBC Welterweight Crown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Hatton

RICKY HATTON COMPILATION




Floyd Mayweather, Jr. (born February 24, 1977 in Grand Rapids, Michigan) is a professional boxer who has a record of 39-0 (25 KOs or TKOs).

Since July 18, 2005, he has been rated by The Ring magazine as the number-one pound-for-pound boxer in the world. [1] Mayweather has won six world boxing championships in five different weight classes, and he was the WBC welterweight champion. He recently defeated Ricky Hatton on December 8, 2007, in a 10th round TKO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Mayweather_Jr

floyd mayweather highlight




Unbeaten Mayweather knocks out Hatton, retains title
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The overwhelmingly British crowd was deafening as it cheered, chanted and sang for Ricky Hatton throughout the fight, but it couldn't fight for him.

He could have used the help.

Floyd Mayweather, faster, more skilled and far more accurate with his punches, dominated Hatton and knocked him out in the 10th round to retain the welterweight championship at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday night.

Most of the fans in the wild sold-out crowd of 16,459 had come all the way from England to support their hero. They sang throughout the fight, even singing for Hatton as he lay dazed on the canvas after being knocked down for the second time.

Mayweather put an exclamation point on his pound-for-pound No. 1 status with a clinical destruction of the reigning junior welterweight champion, who moved up for the opportunity to face the "Pretty Boy" in one of the most anticipated fights in years.

"I took my time. I fought inside and outside," Mayweather said. "A true champion can adapt to anything. I already knew coming in it was going to be a rough night and that it was going to be tougher than most of my fights. I didn't prepare halfway. I had a great training camp."

Mayweather, who is 30, hinted that it might have been his last training camp and talked about retiring, the same way he did after winning the title from Carlos Baldomir in November 2006.
When asked about facing titleholder Miguel Cotto next, Mayweather said, "He's a hell of a champion, and there are great guys at 154 [pounds], but I have done everything I can do in the sport of boxing and I am not going to fight anybody. I accomplished a goal tonight because one of my dreams was to fight in the U.K., but I couldn't. So I had the best of the U.K. come to me."

Hatton (43-1, 31 KOs) was never really in the fight even though he tried to rough Mayweather (39-0, 25 KOs) up by bulling him into the ropes, wrestling with him and making it a physical fight.

Hatton took the loss with good humor.

"What a fluke that was," he said. "He is very good at making you miss. He was better inside than I thought. He caught me. It was working, but I didn't quite stick to the game plan. I was a little gung ho. He wasn't the biggest welterweight I've seen, but I felt the difference. I knew what the tactics were. I wasn't quite good enough to apply it tonight."

Mayweather was clearly in control before rocking Hatton in the 10th round. He knocked him down with a left hook, and Hatton was badly hurt. He didn't look as though he knew where he was when he got up, but referee Joe Cortez let the fight continue.

Mayweather wasted no time jumping on him again, landing a flurry of punches, including another left hook that sent Hatton staggering backward and down again. Cortez called off the fight at 1:35 without a count at the same time the white towel was thrown from Hatton's corner.

"He was definitely the toughest competitor I ever faced," Mayweather said. "I was throwing body shots, and he kept coming. I see now why they call him the 'Hitman.' But then I threw the check hook. They teach us that in northern Michigan in the amateurs, and he walked right into the shot. He never saw it coming."

Said Hatton, "He's very clever. He picked up a couple of shots, and that was that. I was forcing it, and I was doing well. I should have been a touch more careful. He knocked me out, but he wasn't the hardest puncher I've ever fought. He's very accurate. Knock me down, I keep getting up. Ricky Hatton is still going to fight."

The entire week of the fight, the Brits had poured into Las Vegas hoping Hatton could replicate other massive British upsets against American fighters, such as Randy Turpin's shocker against Sugar Ray Robinson to win the middleweight title in 1951 and Lloyd Honeyghan's shocking knockout of Donald Curry to win the undisputed welterweight title in 1987.

It wasn't to be.

It took a few rounds for Mayweather, who was fighting in his adopted hometown, to look comfortable against relentless Hatton, but when he finally did, he started to let his hands go and was able to catch Hatton with combinations.

He cut Hatton, 29, over the right eye in the third round, and in the fourth, Mayweather started to land clean, crisp shots. He stunned Hatton with a three-punch combination.

In the sixth, Hatton lost a point when he shoved Mayweather into the ropes and hit him behind the head.

Mayweather shook the blow off, then continued to pick Hatton apart. He staggered Hatton in the eighth with a straight right hand that snapped his head back as the Americans in the crowd burst into a chant of "USA! USA! USA!"

Mayweather continued the assault and was battering Hatton with combinations and body shots, which was supposed to be Hatton's forte.

By the ninth round, Mayweather's stiff left jab was snapping Hatton's head back and it looked as though it was only a matter of time until the end.

Mayweather said he wanted the knockout. His power has been questioned, and he has battled hand injuries.

"I wanted to show the fans I can punch with power," he said. "I feel like in one of my last fights, I gave the fans a dud. So I wanted to come back and give the fans a great fight."

HBO will replay the bout Dec. 15 (10:15 p.m. ET/PT).

The victory was a culmination of a huge year for Mayweather. He earned more than $20 million to go with the nearly $30 million he earned May 5 when he outpointed Oscar De La Hoya in the richest fight in boxing history. In between the fights, Mayweather emerged as a mainstream star with his performance on the ABC reality series "Dancing With the Stars." Dancing competitors Helio Castroneves, Mark Cuban and Wayne Newton walked him into the ring.



"Money" Mayweather KOs Hatton




There's only one Floyd Mayweather Jr. as Ricky Hatton and his fans find out
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22171714/
Their man was lying sprawled on his back on the canvas below, and still Ricky Hatton's fans in the cheap seats at the MGM Grand hotel-casino were waving beers high and singing his praises to the tune of "Winter Wonderland."

"There's only one Ricky Hatton, one Ricky Hatton," they crooned collectively, though slightly off-key.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. heard them, partly because Mayweather hears everything that goes on in the ring. Once, HBO's Jim Lampley was babbling too much ringside at a Mayweather fight, and Mayweather stopped in mid-action to urge him to calm down.
Hatton heard them too, though at the moment he wasn't hearing much of anything. A savage left hook from a boxer who supposedly couldn't punch began his downfall and a flurry of punches put him down and out for the second and last time on this night.

Besides, he had already heard enough.

"I'm about sick of that song myself now," he said after recovering what was left of his senses.

Credit Hatton for his honesty, though this wasn't a fight built on honest expectations. About the only ones who thought the undersized brawler from Manchester had much of a chance against the best fighter in the world were the thousands of fellow Brits who traveled across the pond to drink, sing, and cheer their man on.

They did their job well, even bringing a small brass band along to help with the only tune they seemed to know. It was all in the spirit of good drunken sportsmanship until they dishonored both themselves and their country by drowning out the national anthem sung by Tyrese Gibson with loud boos and ear-splitting whistles.

The few Mayweather fans among the 16,000 or so who packed the hotel arena tried with little success to overcome that by singing the national anthem as loudly as they could. And there was no shortage of one-fingered salutes to the Brits, including some from the ringside press section.

But it was left to Mayweather to extract the best revenge, and he did his best for God, country and about $11 million. Hatton had some early success with his frenetic, brawling style, but there hasn't been anything Mayweather hasn't seen in a boxing ring and he wasn't going to let the challenger to his throne be the only one doing some dirty work.

They went after each other with fists to the face, elbows to the neck, and heads to the head. They held and clinched and wrestled despite the best efforts of referee Joe Cortez, who did everything humanly possible to turn it into some sort of a boxing match _ including stopping the fight twice to lecture both fighters.

But it was always going to be that kind of a fight largely because it was Hatton's only possible way to win. The style had carried him to victory in all 43 of his other fights, and he wasn't going to change it even against a fighter who possesses the best defensive skills of anyone of his generation.

"Tough as nails," Mayweather said of his foe. "I had him hurt a couple of times and he was still coming forward."

By the middle of the fight, Mayweather was scoring effectively with right leads and left hooks as Hatton continued to come forward relentlessly. Hatton was falling behind, and it didn't help his already slim chances when Cortez took a point from him in the sixth round after he pushed Mayweather's head between the ropes.

Hatton knew the point deduction made it even more unlikely that he could win by decision. So he played into Mayweather's hands by starting to take more chances on the distant hope that he might catch the 147-pound champion with a big shot to turn the fight around.

"I think I put my foot on the gas a bit too much when the point got taken off," Hatton said.

Soon, Mayweather was administering a beating. In the eighth round he rocked Hatton with big punches to the head, landing 32 punches in the round to only six for the challenger as desperation grew in the Englishman's corner.

The end finally came in the 10th round when Mayweather, fighting with his back to his corner, unleashed a left hook he had been working on in training camp and used early in the fight before Hatton began catching on to it. He called it a "chip hook," and Hatton never saw it as it connected to the side of his jaw and he went sprawling on the canvas.

Hatton got up, but he wasn't going to last long. Mayweather caught him with two more shots to the head and he went down in a delayed reaction at the same time Cortez was moving in to stop the fight and his corner was throwing in the towel.

Mayweather answered his few remaining critics who complained that he only fought defensively and was afraid to take chances to finish a fighter. In his first fight since his megafight with Oscar De La Hoya, he delivered the kind of performance expected from the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

Mayweather hinted at retirement as he usually does after a fight, but there's little doubt he will be back, possibly against Shane Mosley or Miguel Cotto.

"What else is there for me to prove?" he asked. "I've beaten so many champions. I've beaten the brawlers and the boxers. And I can beat them at their own game, that's the difference. I said I would fight him inside and I did. I knew he was going to get dirty and I had to do the same."

Hatton, meanwhile, was in fairly good spirits after his first defeat and vowed to come back himself though the knockout loss probably spoiled a big May payday with De La Hoya. He had $5 million to take home, and the band was there at the post-fight press conference to serenade him once again.

This time, though, it was Mayweather singing, and he had some new lyrics.

"There's only one Mayweather. There's only one Mayweather. He talks the talk, and he walks the walk, walking to the money land."

So what if he didn't sing any better than Hatton's fans. Mayweather didn't need to.

He had already done his job for the night.