Hatton Sloppy But Efficient In Victory by Dave Oakes - 11/28/2005 Ricky Hatton added the WBA Jr. Welterweight belt to his IBF title with a hard fought win over Carlos Maussa on Saturday night at the Hallam FM Arena in Sheffield, England. Both fighters started off at a fast pace. Hatton was guilty of rushing his boxing in the first two rounds and was unable to break through Maussa's unorthodox style. To make matters worse for Hatton, he sustained a terrible cut above the left eye in the first two minutes of the fight from an accidental clash of heads. In the third Hatton started to calm down and picked his punches more sensibly than he had done in the previous rounds but was cut again by Maussa's head, this time over the right eye. Maussa at this stage was taking more and more punches and decided to resort to dirty tactics by first rubbing his glove laces into Hatton's cuts and then landing a couple of well placed low blows, prompting a warning from referee Micky Vann. It was much the same in the fourth with Maussa landing a few more low blows which he was lucky not to get a point deduction for. Hatton landed a beautiful left hook in the round and was starting to gain complete control of the fight with Maussa offering little in retaliation to Hatton's onslaught. In round five Hatton cut Maussa under his right eye and started to dominate the fight with his swarming style. In rounds six and seven Hatton was still on top and Maussa's eye was swelling badly as the round wore on. In round eight Hatton got caught by two straight rights but walked through them and connected with several left hooks that looked to have hurt Maussa. At the end of the round Maussa looked very tired and his right eye was now virtually closed as he made his way slowly back to his corner. Hatton, sensing victory, made a fast start to the ninth, unleashing a right cross that shook Maussa and sent him back towards the ropes. Hatton added a left hook that sent Maussa falling to the canvas. Maussa tried desperately to get to his feet but was counted out and Hatton added another belt to his collection. While this wasn't a vintage Hatton performance he'll be happy that he came through a tough fight against a durable and unorthodox opponent. After the fight Hatton stated that he wants bouts with Miguel Cotto and Floyd Mayweather next year, but there have also been strong rumors linking him with a fight against Arturo Gatti in May at Madison Square Garden. Hatton is now 40-0 (30 KOs), while Maussa drops to 20-3 (18 KOs). On the undercard Carl 'The Cat' Thompson was lucky to get a points decision against the surprisingly decent pot-bellied Frenchman Frederic Serrat. While Thompson is at one end of the age scale (41), rising middleweight Matthew Macklin is at the other. At 24 Macklin looks to be maturing into a real hot prospect and only took a round to stop the usually durable Russian Alexey Chirkov. Macklin moves to 16-1 (12 KOs) and looks to have a very bright future ahead of him. Due to all the questions sent in Doc's is going to start a monthly mailbag to sort out all your boxing and gambling questions. It also gives you a forum to express your opinion. Please send all correspondence to service@docsports.com |