The Hitman
Shocks the World By
MICHAEL AMAKOR | June 6, 2005
WBU Light
Welterweight Champion Ricky “The Hitman”Hatton yesterday beat long
time defending champion Kostya “Thunder from Down Under” Tszyu to
become the new IBF Light Welterweight Champion on Saturday night in
front of a sellout crowd of 22,000 frenzied patriotic fans at the
M.E.N. Arena, Manchester across the pond in England..
There is an unwritten rule in boxing about comebacks, boxers are
usually advised to first take on a couple of tune-ups against
journey men before fighting the lions of the division, Kostya
ignored this rule and walked through Sharmba Mitchell in such
dramatic fashion stopping him in the third round after a twenty two
month injury induced layoff that we all forgot about the rule and
hailed him as the next great boxing genius.
One has to wonder about Mitchell’s pedigree after the Kostya
shutdown because he had about four or five fights that should have
kept him sharp and primed to beat down a Kostya who had been
chilling way in sunny side Australia.
Fuelled by that performance and his press clippings Kostya accepted
the dangerous assignment of defending his title against the Hitman
after a long layoff with a sparse few easy rounds under his belt
over the past four years.
This time he paid the price and like Mike Tyson and Felix Trinidad
before him he was totally unprepared to handle the frenzied pace set
by the 27 year old Hitman who out hustled and out boxed him down the
stretch before extracting total capitulation in the form of Tyszu
quitting on his stool before the beginning of the twelfth round.
Kostya walked into an arena filled with the boos from the atypical
British crowd, and if he thought that was the hardest part he had
more coming as the Hitman meant business. From the opening bell
Hatton fired the first shot coming forward hooking, jabbing and
keeping the fight as close as could by forcing clinches that tied
Tsyzu up. The Hitman then proceeded to unveil an arsenal of rough
house tactics that he employed throughout the fight from trapping
Tsyzu head under his armpit during clinches to rabbit punching while
spinning off clinches. Kostya lost the first two rounds as he
strained against the Hitman trying to understand the implacable
force facing him.
Between rounds three through six Kostya tried to regain some of the
ring generalship he had once commanded in previous fights, he seemed
to be getting his bearing as he desperately tried to counter the
Hitman with Thunder from Down Under straight right hands and body
shots that did little to faze or slow down the Hitman’s assault. The
Hitman simply absorbed
all his shots and retaliated with even wilder lunging jabs of his
own throwing Kostya constantly off his rhythm and making it
extremely difficult to score the rounds - one was inclined to score
these rounds a draw.
Kostya seemed to briefly took control of the fight from round seven
through eight as he began to be more accurate with his punches, even
landing a digging body shot right on the belt line that had the
Hitman on the canvas for a few seconds with the referee ruling no
knockdown. Hatton responding to Tsyzu resurgence with pure
uncoordinated aggression wrestling and pressuring
the older man every chance he got. He so frustrated Kostya who
responded by pushing him down into the ropes near the end of the
eight round.
By the Ninth round, Tsyzu began to slow down and Hatton regained
control of the fight and became even more aggressive exploding from
all angles with wild punches of every variety relentlessly pushing
forward with digging body shots and grappling Tsyzu into the ropes,
the round came to a head as Tsyzu unleashed a low blow in the heat
of battle dropping Hatton to the canvas.
The referee once again did not take a point and the fight continued
with the Hitman immediately retaliating with a deliberate and
vicious low blow of his own dropping Kostya to the canvas. No points
were taken for this deliberate low blow and Kostya was given time to
recover, as is typical of most fighters he did not use the whole
five minutes, which might have been a mistake as he got staggered
against the ropes near the end of the tenth round. Tsyzu employed
all the tricks in the book to avoid being stopped.
Hatton absolutely dominated the tenth and eleventh rounds, and
suddenly the fight came to a sudden halt as Kostya's cornerman
stepped in and halted the bout.
In examining the fight a few things come to mind, one, the referee
seemed to be on the Hitman’s side as he allowed the rough house
tactics to go on unabated instead of separating the fighters during
the numerous clinches, I also noticed that he usually broke up the
clinches after a wink from the Hitman whenever Kostya seemed to be
getting the upper hand during forced
clinches. Another curiosity is that Kostya seemed to lack the fire
or desire to want to really hurt the Hitman, because he got in
several rabbit punches that would have ended the fight in his favor
if he had really thrown them with more conviction – one could say he
was 35 years old, perhaps something suspicious was going on in
there.. no, that cannot happen in boxing of the 21st century.
Thirdly, no points were taking for the two knockdowns in Kostya
favor during the fight and no points were deducted for the
intentional and vicious low blow unleashed by Hatton in retaliation
for past punches wrongly perceived by all as low blows. If a
knockdown had been declared in Kostya favor in the seventh round he
would have drawn some inspiration to fight back
more valiantly. In the championship rounds if a point had been
deducted for the vicious low blow unleashed by the Hitman, Tsyzu
would have dug deep down and withered the storm to coast to a
decision in the hopes of perhaps getting a decision because the
fight was quite close. Nothing happened and the former champion
became even more drained of his will to continue in a battle with
all the forces against him.
When pressed at ringside about a rematch Tsyzu was not too anxious
about it claiming rightfully so that he would think about it. Now,
at thirty five years old and after several ring wars behind him but
with hall of fame inductions almost guaranteed he may decide to call
it quits and spend the rest of his days sunning out in Australia.
For Hatton, the sky is the limit as he is now the number one man in
his division, the torch has finally been transferred to a new
generation, and the future even gets rosier for him as he does not
have to journey stateside to do battle. It makes more sense both
financially and otherwise for all contenders like Mayweather,
Freitas, Gatti and a host of other pretenders to journey to his turf
to be feasted upon – Going by this performance The Hitman should eat
them all up.