No contest in Mayweather-Hatton
By Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports
AS VEGAS – Floyd Mayweather Jr. had the short end of the crowd, but the better end of the fight Saturday and dominated Ricky Hatton in their heavily hyped bout for the WBC welterweight title, stopping him at 1:35 of the 10th round.
Mayweather was far ahead, easily outboxing the Briton whose rabid fans filled the MGM Grand Garden and turned the entire city into an electric place.
Mayweather knocked Hatton down twice in the 10th. He landed a crushing left hook in the corner that landed on the jaw. Hatton went head first into the corner pad and then was down. He was in serious jeopardy of not making it up.
He arose and Mayweather attacked. He landed two lefts and a right and Hatton was down again.
As Hatton fell, his corner threw in the towel and referee Joe Cortez waved it off.
Hatton fought in his usual style, rushing in and trying to make it a physical fight, but he landed few effective punches and mostly grabbed and held. He only landed 63 punches, according to CompuBox.
Mayweather was effective with his right hand in the early rounds, popping Hatton repeatedly. He had to deal with Hatton laying all over him and mauling him, trying to make it a brawl.
Cortez warned the fighters numerous times and then deducted a point from Hatton for hitting behind the head in the sixth.
But Mayweather was never in trouble and his vastly superior skills made it a no contest.
Yahoo! Sports had it 89-81 for Mayweather at the time of the stoppage. Two of the judges had that score and the third had it at 88-82.
Kevin Iole covers boxing and mixed martial arts for Yahoo! Sports. Send Kevin a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.