Pacquiao-Hatton bout called a match between Mars and Earth

MANILA, Philippines - Who says the Pacquiao-Hatton fight was a battle between the East and the West? For The Independent’s James Lawton, the match was “more like a collision between Earth and Mars." Lawton compared Emmanuel “Manny" Pacquiao to the red planet, named after the Roman god of war. “Pacquiao certainly burned so ferociously he might have been something produced on the red planet from the moment he got up from his prayers, crossed himself and answered the first bell," said Lawton. The International Boxing Organization and the Ring Magazine light-welterweight titles were robbed by Pacquiao from Hatton. But Lawton said these titles were the “lightest of window dressing for a dazzling product." The writer described Pacquiao as that product: “a fighter of stunning pace and astonishing balance in the art of throwing a punch of genuine power and timing." Lawton said that after Hatton's December 2007 defeat in his match with Floyd Mayweather Jr, the British boxer said that he fought in a wrong bout and his efforts were hindered by the “intrusive officiating of referee Joe Cortes." But now, in losing his battle with Pacquiao, Hatton could no longer use the same reason, according to Lawton. “This time such camouflage will provoke only mockery in the hardest concerns of the fight game. This time there was simply no hiding place. This time Ricky Hatton was laid bare," Lawton said. “Any possible cover was simply ripped away by Pacquiao's demonstration that he belonged in an entirely different, and superior, category to the Mancunian Hitman whose supporters could not have been more stunned by the neon-lit reality had scales just been removed from their eyes," the writer added. - GMANews.TV