Hatton and challenger in prime condition for European welterweight clash

Both Matthew Hatton and Switzerland’s Roberto Belge tipped the scales at bang on the welterweight championship limit (10st 7) at yesterday’s weigh-in ahead of their European welterweight title match-up at Bolton Arena tonight. Hatton, 40-4-2, is the making the second defence of his EBU crown that he won by outpointing Gianluca Branco this spring. The Manchester man had to get off the floor in the opening round to box astutely to decision Yuriy Nuzhnenko in his first defence in July.

Belge is unbeaten in 26 fights but suffered the only blemish on his record when being held to a 12-round draw by Andrei Abramenka for the lightly regarded IBC crown in May and has just four stoppages on his record. With home advantage, the steadily improving Hatton will be expecting to prevail on the cards.

In the chief support, St.Helens’ unbeaten Martin Murray (reigning Commonwealth middleweight champion) weighed-in at 11st 5lbs for his vacant WBA International middleweight title clash with Brazil’s Carlos Nascimento who weighed 11st 6lbs.

Bury super-bantamweight Scott Quigg weighed-in half a pound inside the championship limit at 8st 9 1/2lbs for his WBA International title defence against France’s Daniel Kodjo Sassou who registered 8st 9lbs.

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