10.12.07 – By Cesar Pancorvo: After yesterday’s performance, Floyd Mayweather deserves a prolonged applause. He dominated, cut and KOed another elite fighter; he faced a swarmer toe-to-toe; he emerged victorious against an undefeated fighter who was 43-0; he knock downed and then knocked out a fighter that, before yesterday, had only been down once. Yesterday, Mayweather, who is close to 31 years old and who is in the finale or conclusion of his career, showed us why he’s the Pound-4-Pound number 1. In some moments, it was a masterful perfomance that confirmed us that Mayweather is a virtuoso and that showed us, once again, an attribute that is characteristic in him: excellence..
It was a masterful perfomance in some moments, but not during the whole ten rounds. Hatton was competitive and stole some rounds, especially at the beginning of the fight. The Brit created problems for Mayweather during the first five rounds of this fight. He hurt Floyd in the first round and made me think: “He has a chance, maybe this will end with a Majority Decision”. Obviously, I was wrong, because Mayweather knew the method of how to deal with difficulties and, after some minutes, turned it into his fight, but the truth must prevail: It would be a mistake to catalogue this fight as Mayweather-Corrales or Mayweather-Gatti, which were extremely one-sided and tortures (for Corrales and Gatti). Hatton won some rounds and made it competitive in some moments; Mayweather took him to school in some other moments. The judges saw it as total domination for Mayweather.
Joe Cortez had a bad perfomance and, in my opinion, only decreased the quality of yesterday’s fight (which was not bad after all; it was a good fight), but his errors didn’t influence in the outcome of the fight, and the point deduction also didn’t affect the ending. There are no excuses.
Weight also wasn’t an excuse. Hatton didn’t commit the same mistake than in the Collazo fight –he was 160 pounds the night of that fight– and was agile, had good foot speed and his stamina didn’t seem affected. Yesterday’s night, in that ring, he weighed approximately the same that he weighs when he fights at Junior Welterweight.
After the fight, when being interviewed by Larry Merchant, Floyd Mayweather showed us his real personality and that his usual character, the greedy and immature rich kid, is just an alter ego.
What should Mayweather do next? The only fight left is Miguel Angel Cotto. It would be huge, but will they fight? We don’t know. After being asked about Cotto, Mayweather said the same thing he said after the De la Hoya fight: that he’ll be away from the rings. Two weeks ago, on the other hand, there were news about Arum’s plans for Cotto: fight De la Hoya or Clottey and then Margarito. Mayweather and Cotto are walking in different paths. I hope they meet in the future, the pressure for this fight to happen will be enormous. Cotto needs to fight Mayweather if he wants to become the best fighter in the planet, and Mayweather needs Cotto to conclude his great career in the best possible way.