Caption:HBO
This bout was a big event long before they rang the first-round bell Saturday night. It was a match-up loaded with story lines, subplots, trash-talking and a remarkable contrast of personalities even wider than the ocean that separated the two.
The triumph was a tremendous addition to Mayweather's already huge arsenal of bragging talking points. Despite his career-long string of dominating performances and his aura of invincibility, the one persistent knock on Mayweather was that he was vulnerable to a skilled pressure fighter.
Ricky Hatton is as skilled of a pressure fighter you will find in the game and while he succeeded in taking the fight to Mayweather, the champion demonstrated once again that if there is a formula to beat him, nobody has discovered it yet.
Hatton did everything he said he would in the early going, pressuring Mayweather constantly, forcing him to fight in a phone booth. Although Hatton was known as a hit and hold artist, it was Mayweather in the early going who would throw a right lead, land and then hold. Mayweather looked uncomfortable fighting an inside fight.
But Mayweather, despite the pressure, kept landing with precision punches and building up points, and by the seventh round the pound-for-pound champion began to take control of the fight as Hatton slowed down.
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