Matthew Hatton retains European welterweight title

Matthew Hatton retained his European welterweight title by "surprisingly" wide scores over Yuriy Nuzhnenko today in Bolton, winning a unanimous decision on judges tallies of 117-110 and 116-111 twice. Bad Left Hook had it 114-114, and it was a competitive, back-and-forth battle from my chair, and the rest of our users watching agreed with that. Sky Sports also had it very close. It's one of those fights where the judges basically scored every round that was close for one guy over the other.

Hatton (40-4-2, 15 KO) deserves credit for fighting a very hard 12th round when it seemed he was running out of gas, and for adjusting well after some early success for Nuzhnenko (30-2-1, 14 KO) that included a first round knockdown of the defending titlist. No criticism of how this fight scored is directed at Hatton, who simply did his job to the best of his ability, same as Nuzhnenko did. The fighters had nothing to do with it, and I don't even think it's a travesty of justice or anything close that Hatton got the duke. I can easily see how he won this fight. The scores were simply wide, but we're all used to it now in these home field title bouts.

In short, the fighters did their jobs and gave their best, and it's no shame that Hatton won. That should be the real focus, that Matthew Hatton retained and did a good job in there, the best you can expect of him. He's still no great talent (and never will be), but damned if he doesn't work hard. I don't imagine any of his fans are disappointed after today's performance.