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Shades Of Tonya
Harding
In Hatton's Performance By William Trillo Photo Folly: Bret "The Threat" Newton
Ricky Hatton had to pull more than one trick out of his bag on Saturday night just to get the victory and keep his IBO Jr. Welterweight belt. Along the way he also had the help of some other players to help him "earn" this victory and it was in that controversial 10th round that I was reminded of another seedy tale in the world of sports.
We all remember the saga of Tonya
Harding, who in her attempt to earn her way to the Gold
Medal in the 1994 Olympics, came up with a plan to help her
get to the gold.
Harding and her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly,
combined with co-conspirators (read thugs) Shawn Eckhardt
and Shane Stant, whacked the knees of top competitor Nancy
Kerrigan with a steel Billy Club at a practice session
during the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships which
opened the door and secured Tonya a spot on the Olympic
team.
Harding's Olympic performance was marred
by a broken shoelace that stopped her routine dead in it's
tracks, and only by the help of her whining did the judges
allow her to redo the lace and give it another whirl.
Fast forward 13 years and somehow I
couldn't help but draw this comparison.
Having already been saved by the ref
earlier in the fight as Hatton was clearly down from a punch
in round 4, yet it was ruled a slip, Hatton found himself in
huge trouble again in round 10.
After tasting a series of Lazcano left
hooks Hatton was reeling and about to go down when out of
the blue came the handpicked & Gilloolyesque ref, Howard
John Foster, who out of nowhere stopped the action to warn
Lazcano about holding, a move that he allowed Hatton all
night long. It was then that while in his corner Ricky
noticed his shoe wasn't tied properly and in a move
reminiscent of Tonya herself, Hatton began frantically
pointing at his shoe and the ref obliged him and allowed
time to stop so his boot could be laced up. Apparently
Hatton's corner men only wear loafers because it took them
way too long to figure out how to re-lace the shoe. All that
nonsense took well over one minute and it bought Hatton
enough time to clear the cobwebs and he went on to take a
unanimous decision.
Not to be lost in this sorted tale is
the two who played the part of co-conspirators Eckhardt &
Standt.
Sitting visibly ringside where Golden
Boy promoters Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya, who
coincidentally were co-promoters of this show.
Am I suggesting they took a steel pipe
to Lazcano's knee before the fight?
Certainly not!
They didn't have to and they knew it.
The Southern California
fighter Lazcano was no secret to the Los Angeles
based promoters and I am sure they knew Lazcano's best days
were far behind him and this would be a fight Hatton could
win pretty easily and maybe even look impressive in doing
so.
Hatton did go on to take a pretty
lopsided decision, but had it not been for one handpicked
ref and an untied shoelace things could have gone
drastically different for all parties concerned.
So it appears the stage is now set for a
Hatton vs. Malignaggi (who has his own set of problems)
showdown sometime before the end of the year. The fighters
will be looking to unify their respective 140 pound belts.
In the immortal words of Nancy Kerrigan
moments after the thug took the club to her knees:
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