Hatton gets positively stuck with one of the most brilliant punches I've ever seen by the incomparable Pacquiao:

Hatton stills comes out aggressive. Hatton standing up too straight. Manny landing with the right hook. Pac Man now backing him up again. Pac Man is extremely accurate. Pac Man still backing him up, but punching a bit wildly. A left hand flattened Hatton. The fight is over. He's flat in the center of the ring.

(Folks, keep reloading)

Hatton looks in very bad shape on the canvas. He's being attended to by officials. It was a perfect, wicked left hand from Pacquiao.

Hatton is now sitting up.

The end comes at 2:59 of round number two.

Scott Christ contextualizes the significance of Pacquiao's achievement:

Manny Pacquiao is without any question the best fighter on the planet. Floyd could knock out Marquez with one punch in July and Pacquiao is the #1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

I'm literally in awe. I don't even know what to say. This was competely amazing. Manny Pacquiao is unreal -- and he's an all-time great. He's won his fourth lineal championship and a title in six weight classes now.

Hatton had nothing for Pacquiao. Nothing. Ricky Hatton is a hell of a fighter and Manny Pacquiao made him look like a guy who didn't belong in there.

I don't know what else to say. Pacquiao just made his spot among the best ever.

Photo via blogs.trb.com.

Steve Cofield with the excellent post:

We've covered the politics of media credentialing pretty heavily over on Cagewriter, the Yahoo! MMA blog. Dana White and the UFC have banned certain folks from attending its events. Some may think this is unique but the same thing is happening with boxing promotions according to Mike Marley of the Boxing Examiner. Marley has worked in and around the game for years. The former N.Y. Post columnist is an excellent writer but he's been hammering Ricky Hatton in the lead-up to the fight saying the Brit has no shot against Manny Pacquiao.

Now Marley has been denied a fight night credential from MagnaMedia, the company in charge of managing the hoard of "media" asking for access. Marley thinks it's simply because "Hatton's hillbillies" as he's calling them, and Golden Boy Promotions are angry with what he's written:

A fight publicist said, "I don’t know who in the Hatton camp you pissed off but they won’t even hear of you getting a press credential! The mention of Michael Marley had them breathing fire!"

If I have to suck up to Hatton and his acolytes to get a free pass to the fight, with my record as a journalist at The Las Vegas Sun, The New York Post, ABC Sports and numerous boxing magazines including Boxing Scene and The Ring, then I’ll accept the refusal every time.

The repercussions of this selective credentialing does not kill boxing, but it seems awfully curious in the age when newspapers (locally the Washington Post cut their boxing coverage) are culling their staff by giving boxing writers the boot to say nothing of the popularity of boxing having declined in the last five years (although with a bit of an uptick more recently) that professional fighters, their camps and the PR agencies in charge of credentialing would think they can be the most egregious and ugly form of "selective". Worse, Cofield identifies another problem with shunning media members who are too critical for select members of the boxing community tastes:

This is a dangerous game to play with these big fights. Boxing can pick and choose who it wants to cover the high-profile fights but then wonders why no one shows for a second-tier fight like Paul Williams versus Winky Wright. There was little media coverage of that fight and consequently a pathetic crowd of 5,400 filled the 11,000-plus seat Mandalay Bay Events Center a few weeks ago.

This is not the position the UFC finds itself in where the MMA media will to varying degrees continue to follow all of their shows. However, the minds at the UFC understand traditional media and new media are bleeding into one another in the direction of new media and that stiff arming them is not a long term sustainable strategy. That's particularly true if they at all care about fostering a healthy relationship with the media. Then again, if you're not afraid of scorched earth policies, maybe the stiff arming is more of a fixture than I give it credit.

I'm too much of a Pacman mark to not predict a win for him tomorrow regardless of Hatton's new trainer and perhaps improved defensive skills courtesy the elder Mayweather. All that being said, Kevin Iole reports on dissension in the ranks at the Ricky Hatton camp that is casting a dark cloud over the British pugilist before tomorrow's fight:

LAS VEGAS – Two days before Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton are to meet in the year’s biggest boxing match, a representative of Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach had a conversation with Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer about the possibility of Roach training Hatton in Hatton’s next fight.

Roach’s agent, Nick Khan, had heard of rumors of discontent between Hatton and his trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr. In a telephone conversation with Schaefer, Khan suggested that Roach would be interested in training Hatton.

"Richard and I were speaking on the phone, though I’m not sure who called who, and I told him how much respect Freddie has for Ricky," said Khan, who is Pacquiao’s former co-manager. "I suggested that after Manny defeats Ricky on Saturday, which is Freddie’s priority, that we sit down and discuss the possibility of Freddie getting together and working with Ricky."

A source close to Roach said Schaefer had indicated that Hatton was miserable with Mayweather and was unhappy that Mayweather had arrived late for several workouts.

My good friend David Sauvage takes a stab over at Eastside Boxing:

The oddsmakers think Pacquiao’s speed will trump Hatton’s pressure. It’s true we’ve never seen Pacquio challenged by anyone other than a boxer, which Hatton certainly is not. Even Morales, when he beat Pacquio, played boxer out of necessity.

But there’s something in Hatton’s favor, something big. The sheer size of the man, naturally fighting ten pounds above Pacquiao, won’t neutralize Pacquiao’s speed, but will mitigate its effect. Hatton can’t dodge Manny’s best shots, but he can absorb them like no one before.

And come right back.

Hatton’s a rare combination of grit and style. Maybe it’s the Manchester in him, urban roughness yoked to English charm. He barrels at you, but his barreling has cunning. When he rips a body shot under your ribs it’s like he knows, on some Darwinian level, the exact shape of a your innards, the better to eviscerate you.

What to say of Pacquiao, the best fighter in the world, whose resume has on it every big name within the conceivable radius of his weight, progressing all the while? Unlike those great ex-sluggers before him, Morales and Barrera, Pacquiao hasn’t shifted to boxer to attain his immortality. He has merely incorporated boxing to structure his slugging. It has made him more ferocious, by making him more exact.

Their last fights, I mean, wow! Manny’s blasé annihilation of Oscar De La Hoya, dehydrated or no; Hatton’s masterful sparring session over master sparrer Pauli Malinaggi. These guys are good, extremely good. They’re at their peak.

But it’s the so-called intangibles that make this fight so damn exciting. It’s the spirit of these men.

I'm looking for Floyd Sr. to spice this series up after the rather dull back-to-back 24/7s that were Calzaghe-Jones (a complete bore, really) and Oscar-Manny (Oscar's fakeness rang out like a church bell all over the show). Hatton is entertaining, Floyd is entertaining, Manny is entertaining, and Freddie's entertaining. The main four are all good. They're no Roger, but who is?

Part two after the jump.

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