Boxing: Motivation is the challenge for Calzaghe and Hatton
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Your support makes all the difference.Nobody in the fight game was surprised when Joe Calzaghe and Ricky Hatton started to talk about how they lack motivation for their fights tonight against two obscure Americans at the Newcastle Arena.
Calzaghe will defend his World Boxing Organisation super-middleweight title for the 12th time against Tocker Pudwill, and Hatton is having his ninth World Boxing Union light welterweight title fight in 21 months against Joe Hutchinson. They both need tests and everybody involved admits they need better fights.
Hutchinson and Pudwill were selected from a random list of virtually unknown fighters that occasionally contains a good fighter who, very rarely, comes to Britain without a reputation and leaves with applause, plaudits and, once or twice, a championship belt.
Pudwill can take a lot of punishment and proved that two years ago when he lost in a challenge for the International Boxing Federation version of Calzaghe's belt against Sven Ottke of Germany, but Calzaghe is a punishing fighter unlike Ottke. Hutchinson's credentials include a distance fight against Arturo Gatti. Hatton, who is unbeaten in 30, is a much more damaging and effective puncher than Gatti.
There has been some chat about the inadequacy of the two challengers, but in Newcastle the opponents did not sell a ticket and, as promoter Frank Warren points out, the tickets sold out because of Hatton and Calzaghe.
The two title fights have been further salvaged by rumours suggesting Hatton has only sparred a dozen rounds and that those were with his brother Matthew, who is not a southpaw like Hutchinson. It is also said that Calzaghe has taken his eye off the fight to concentrate on his American debut next year. At the weigh-in there were denials from everybody, but boxing whispers are often true.
Hutchinson is by far the more dangerous of the challengers and Hatton is the more vulnerable because of his delicate eyebrows. When Hutchinson lost on points to Gatti in 2000 he was warned several times for illegal use of the head. There was a point in the fight, with Gatti bleeding heavily from two split brows, when it looked like the fight would be stopped.
"It can get a bit wild in that ring," Hutchinson said. "But I'm not here to butt anybody because I have been in with much better fighters and I know that I can win." He is telling the truth, but the way he has lost in those other fights is the reason he has been chosen.
Hatton, 24, is ready to go anywhere on the boxing map and there is nobody for him to fear. After Hutchinson's collapse tonight, the need for a test will reach crisis point.
Calzaghe will need just a few rounds to leave Pudwill in a mess and put himself right in line for a major fight in America next year, hopefully against the undisputed middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins. It is a fight British boxing needs.
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