Ricky Hitman Hatton Made To Work By Carlos Vilches

Ricky Hatton was made to work hard before retaining his WBU light-welterweight title in Manchester to clear the path towards bigger fights ahead.

Hatton was pushed all the way to a points decision by Argentinian opponent Carlos Vilches on a frustrating night at the MEN Arena.

The result was never in doubt with the three ringside judges scoring 119-108 (twice), 120-107 to give Hatton his 36th successive professional win.

But Hatton’s rivals will take confidence from his apparent lack of a killer punch as he prepares to step up into the big league.

Hatton did drop Vilches to the canvas with a fine-looking left hook in round five but referee Darryl Ribbink deemed it a low blow and gave the challenger time to recover.

For the majority of the remainder of the contest Vilches hung on determinedly and largely succeeded in silencing another five-figure crowd.

Hatton will be happy to forget Vilches and look ahead to a potential clash with American former lightweight champion Paul Spadafora in the Autumn, or Vivian Harris.

He is tired of proving himself against lesser light-welterweight names and wants to prove himself against the likes of Sharmba Mitchell and Kostya Tszyu.

Vilches – a replacement for original opponent Antonio Mesquita – was Hatton’s third low-key opponent in his last four fights.

But with big crowds paying a proportion of his big wages Hatton has become financially dependent to some degree upon his MEN Arena base, where he attracted another five-figure crowd.

Hatton’s loyal supporters would turn up and cheer him to the rafters for knocking out just about anybody, but the fighter himself still has questions to answer.

Hatton took no time to get into his stride, testing Vilches with a range of early body shots as he pressed forward.

The Argentinian looked determined to make a fight of it and dealt well with a cracking left uppercut from the champion midway through the first round.

Vilches got the chance to open up a little in the third but lacked the power in his punches to change the course of the contest.

Briefly in the fifth round Hatton appeared to have got his man for Vilches got up after his brief respite and hung on, firing a number of unpunished low blows of his own in the later rounds.

The crowd got on his back and cheered Hatton’s desperate attempts for a late knockout to take up to the next level.

But Hatton was destined to have to settle for a points win and knows he still has some questions to answer when he does finally get his crack at the big boys.

Anthony Farnell was taken to hospital as a precaution after losing his WBU middleweight title on the undercard.

Farnell complained of feeling unwell while having his left eye stitched in the dressing room following his 10th round defeat to Eugenio Montero.

The Manchester favourite had stepped in at five days’ notice to defend his crown but was well beaten in a poor fight.

Referee Dave Parris waved the contest off when Farnell crumpled to the canvas under another Montero assault.