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06/24/2005 Archived Entry: "The Crap Chute: Gatti vs. Mayweather"
The Crap Chute: Gatti vs. Mayweather
Long ago I stopped letting myself get emotionally involved with fighters' personalities either pro or con when it comes to analysis of a fight. Like everyone else, I consider Floyd Mayweather to be one of the bigger a-holes I've run across, not just in boxing but in all of sports.
Also like everyone else, I've had thrills, spills & chills from Arturo Gatti like no other fighter of his generation. The fact that he's a true warrior is undisputed. How can you not like Gatti as a fighter?
But how I feel about Arturo & Floyd is irrelevant when it comes to analyzing this fight.
This fight is an utter mismatch. I believe Mayweather is going to carve Gatti up like an overtenderized side of beef. Gatti's chance is a puncher's chance. If he can land his vaunted left hook -- especially with the extra poundage he will be carrying -- he can floor/flatten anybody. His best shot is to take a page from the Ricky Hatton handbook on fighting Tszyu & try to turn this into an ugly brawl.
That's his only shot. & it ain't gonna happen ...
Mayweather is infinitely more mobile than the achilles-tendon-hampered Tszyu. He's also the best pure boxer on the planet, & he has enough power so that Gatti can't just walk through him.
While Floyd has had hand troubles in the past, he seemingly has succesfully overcome them over his past few fights. Not so for Gatti. He has broken one hand or the other in almost all of his recent fights. He's brittle & his body is breaking down.
Not to mention that he can barely talk anymore.
The brilliant matchmaking of Gatti against C-minus competition since the De La Hoya fight is well documented. Floyd has beaten the best. Most notably, Corrales & Castillo, who just engaged in what undoubtably will be the fight of the year.
While Mayweather's rhetoric leading up to this fight has been vile, unfortunately for Gatti, everything he has said is actually true. Gatti is shot. Gatti is a paper champion -- Ricky Hatton is the true, lineal, junior-welterweight champ -- & his competion has been relatively mediocre for years. It's the way Floyd puts it that antagonizes the fans. But underneath all the macho posturing & the vitriol Mayweather spews, there isn't just a grain of truth, there's a boulder ...
Mayweather by mid- to late-round TKO, most likely on cuts.
GorDoom
