Hatton’s a hit in my book and now he can be a great

Matthew Norman
24 Nov 2008

Morning glory was the story for Ricky Hatton shortly before dawn yesterday as the Gallagher Brothers, Noel and Liam, invaded a ring in the desert oasis of Las Vegas to congratulate their fellow Mancunian on resurrecting his career.

Sometimes even this column, obsessive about live sport though it is, resents the all-night boxing vigil. Joe Calzaghe's recent defeat of Roy Jones Jr was such an instance, the Welshman's cocky showboating against a hopelessly shot fighter he should have knocked out, irritating the hell out of my sleep-deprived self.

Hatton's display against Paulie Malignaggi was something different … a hugely impressive performance that spoke eloquently of the Guinness-guzzler's character, honesty and commitment.

There had been concerns that the brutal hiding he took a year ago at the staggeringly quick hands of Floyd Mayweather Jr had removed his stomach for the fight. Not one bit of it. With Floyd Sr as his new trainer, and returning to the junior welterweight division at which he is so dominant, Hatton was reborn.

Malignaggi, who lacks the power to frighten Wee Jimmy Krankie, is no genius, but neither is he a dummy. He is a young, fast, tricky boxer who offered a useful examination of Hatton's appetite for the game.

This he passed with honours by unleashing a show of aggression far more controlled than the mad-bull efforts of recent years suggested possible.

After wobbling Malignaggi towards the end of the second with a knee-buckling overhand-right, Hatton bossed every moment until the New Yorker's management threw in the towel in the 11th. It wasn't that their boy was about to be stopped, let alone get seriously injured. They simply concluded he was so outclassed that continuing was pointless, and although it drove Malignaggi wild with rage, sparing him further humiliation was the wise decision.

Much as with Calzaghe one cannot seriously argue that Hatton belongs among the greats because he has never beaten a true great at his peak. He has only met one of those (which is one more than Joe), and Mayweather annihilated him.

Yet instead of looking back in anger (only one or two more Oasis references, I swear it) at that assault on his pride, and when others would have preferred to inflate the bank balance by fighting has-beens and never-quite-weres, Hatton decided to refine his style and take on a man who might have beaten him.

This humility and courage further endears a man who was already as witty, engaging and generally lovable a sportsman as Britain has known in a generation. So now he has a future once again, and a highly lucrative one at that.

His likely next move is the career-defining match he craves, against the winner of the imminent meeting between the seemingly immortal Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquaio, currently the planet's top pound-for-pound pugilist, according to Ring Magazine.

What an opportunity for Hatton this presents, whoever wins the non-title welterweight “Dream Match” in Las Vegas on Saturday week. Victory over either Pac Man or the Golden Boy is unlikely, because these are two towering talents of the game but the improved mobility and self-control he showed yesterday would give him a decent outsider's chance.

Should he pull off the upset, would it be time to hail him as a genuine boxing great? Definitely.
Or, at the very least, maybe. But that's one for next year. For what remains of this one, he has earned the right to savour every drop of milk stout he can ingest, because in lighting up the MGM Grand yesterday, Hatton was nothing less than electric.

Bookies cash in as Big Four fail

If there was one clear winner from an historically eccentric Premier League Saturday, it was the bookmaking industry. A Big Four aggregate of 0.00 goals has never happened before, and untold millions will have been lost by those who routinely back them to win in singles, doubles, trebles and four-timers.

As for the weekend's only real loser, I assume he is addressing the alleged “crisis” with more sang froid than the pundits.

Arsenal are unquestionably in the midst of a depression, both on and off the pitch, and I can't pretend to be too traumatized by that.

Even so, the truism that form is transient but class permanent didn't become a truism by being untrue.

Arsene Wenger remains the finest coach in England, and if others cannot see that his collection of prodigiously talented children will grow up soon enough, the Alsatian, one suspects, will be losing little sleep about that.

Toughest test is working out which humiliation was the biggest fiasco

Sincere thanks to the national cricket and rugby union teams of England for the range and absoluteness of their incompetence. With our footballers emerging as potential challengers for the grandest of prizes, these respective failures seems beautifully timed to counteract the temptation towards smugness about our place in the global pecking order.

Which is the biggest fiasco is a finely balanced calculation. The rugby XV's capitulation to South Africa was a memorably embarrassing defeat by any standards, but a singular one. The cricketers, on the other hand, have lost all their one day matches in India so far, but each in less laughable fashion than their counterparts managed on Saturday.

The hiding the Test side are anticipated to take from hosts who recently murdered Australia there may yet give them an edge (while confirming the idiocy of making Kevin Pietersen captain).

Then again, it is a good while since England, on winning the 2005 Ashes, last looked world class at cricket, so the speedy deterioration of a rugby side that 14 months ago ran those same Springboks so close in the World Cup Final favours the chasers of the egg.

All I can suggest is that the BBC adds a Worst International Team to next month's Sports Personality awards, allowing the public to settle the matter.

And if a certain retired hoofer is back from his cruise, he'd be just the chap to present either Peter Moores or Martin Johnson with the inaugural John Sergeant Cup For Enchanting Incompetence.

Aussies' agony feels so great

With the exception of “Why can't we hear more from David Pleat?” this is the last desire I expected to share with you but I wish I was in Australia today. The bliss of ambling through Sydney relishing the look on faces wiped clean of the usual arrogance . . . Bless you, New Zealand and your beautiful haka for the most sensational upset in nearly 20 years.

On the morning of the rugby league World Cup Final, Sydney's Daily Telegraph looked beyond the triumph to compile a Rest of the World XIII that might compete with their heroes.

I won't dwell on the traditional penalty for hubris but this couldn't have happened to a more deserving nation, and long may the agony persist.