Sven Ottke and Oktay Urkal. Ricky Hatton slaps a lot with his right hand. He could be so much better if he could work on delivering that right hand better. He worked on his jab, time to work on the right hand. Maybe one of the reasons his hands swell up. Joe as well.
Hatton does cuff with the right it's true, he also throws it at too tight an angle, and without any real leverage behind it. His left upstairs is better, but still doesn't really utilise his upper body strength that well. His body shots are thrown with far better technique, the head shots are almost an afterthought.
Hatton's jab is actually one of the better ones in the division for my money, crisp, fast and actually snaps the opponents head back. For someone with short arms, Hatton jabs very well.
I think Calzaghe's so-called slapping is something to do with him having somewhat fragile mitts. He doesn't punch like Tyson but I think he's quite heavy handed – fast too.
You don't have to have incredibly heavy hands to stop an opponent, Ali had pretty underrated power, enough to hurt Frazier and Foreman, but he hurt them with volume, which is what Calzaghe does too. Ali incidentally was the master at hitting with the open glove.
I don't think it's that slow to be honest. It doesn't travel very far, so there isn't that much time to get out of the way, it's also thrown coming forward, as opposed to moving laterally which makes it harder to evade.
Pedersen was a mover, and he got hit plenty with the jab, as did Rios.
Slapping (not Jordan-style) was something I tried on the bag last week, just because it's always confused the heck out of me how someone tough like Mkrtchyan could be knocked down by seemingly incorrect punches. They actually can carry a lot of power, not as much as a conventional hook, but when they come cumulatively it could easily be too much to handle. I lost in the first round in my third or fourth bout to a guy who just came out throwing, not massively hard, but sheer volume, and that's what Calzaghe does I reckon. There's plenty of shoulder in the shot, and the cumulative effect is actually quite damaging.
chris s wrote:Bobby Vanzie against Graham Earl the other week.
Yeah, Vanzie doesn't always punch correctly. That has to be taken into account when you look at both Earl fights. Only Johnny Eames mentioned it in all the post-fight discussion - and he's not on 80k a year from Sky.
