Campbell Hatton suffered a second consecutive defeat at the weekend and now his abilities inside of the ring are being questioned more than ever. Following the loss, Hatton’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, provided an update on the 23-year-old’s future at Matchroom Boxing.
Son of legendary British boxing icon Ricky Hatton, Campbell debuted back in 2021 and has been extremely active since, winning his first 14 professional contests and scoring some eye-catching body shot stoppage victories.
Back in March, ‘The Hurricane’ challenged for his first professional title as he sought to step up the level of opposition and claim the vacant Central Area super-lightweight strap, but he was left wanting, as Jimmy Joe Flint was able to hand the youngster a first career defeat.
Just seven months later, Hatton went to battle with Flint once again, with his rival also going into the contest off of the back of a defeat, having been trumped by Kyle Boyd during the interim.
Yet, despite facing Flint in front of his Mancunian faithful, Hatton was once again unable to get the better of the Yorkshireman and lost another unanimous-decision in a closely fought and bloodied affair.
Consequently, fans have begun to question whether Hatton has a future in the sport beyond the English level and in an interview with Boxing UK, Eddie Hearn offered his verdict.
“It is difficult because he is very young. If the guy was 29/30 then maybe you would say ‘that is your lot’.
“I think that right now, Campbell Hatton’s level is Area and English level – that is no disgrace, a lot of fighters don’t even reach that level.
“Obviously, with our stable and where we are looking to take fighters, we don’t really work with and continuously back, after back-to-back defeats, Area title and English level fighters.
“Campbell is a little bit different. One – because he is a really good kid, two – because he works his nuts off and three – because he has given us back-to-back brilliant fights and he is still young.
“So, Campbell has got to look at himself and say ‘if that is my level, am I happy to continue?’. If he is happy to continue, then he should absolutely continue. Whether that means to go and have a couple of fights on the smaller shows and without the pressure, he ended up being a co-main event tonight in front of about 8,000, it is not easy.
“Again, he gave us a brilliant fight but it just wasn’t good enough and he is not really progressing. The performance wasn’t really much better, in my opinion, than the last performance. But, he is young and if he is enjoying the game and wants to stay at it, then he absolutely should.”
Whether Hatton will decide to appear on some small hall shows to gain some confidence remains to be seen but his time in the Matchroom spotlight does appear to be over – at least for now.
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