10.01.08 – By Cesar Pancorvo: No doubt that Ricky Hatton could choose between many opponents for his next fight, which will be his comeback bout since his first loss against Floyd Mayweather, in 2007’s last mega fight, and also no doubt that he must (and will) elect between one of the following paths:
a) Stay in the Light Welterweight division, 140 lbs., and dominate it like the Champion he is, because he is still the Ring and Lineal Champion in that weight class. Hatton has only defended his title three times in 30 months, against Carlos Maussa, who was top ranked because of a big win against Vivian Harris, Juan Urango, who was unexperienced, and against a fighter who was arguably in the P4P ranking: Jose Luis Castillo. This division, which was in great shape in 2005 –Tszyu, Hatton, Cotto, Mayweather, Gatti–, became boring for some time, but it has become interesting again with fighters like Junior Witter, Paul Malignaggi (heavily criticized because of his last performance), Vivian Harris, Ricardo Torres, etc. Hatton has a lot of work to do if he wants to dominate and clean that division.
b) Stay in the Welterweight division, 147 lbs., and be involved in more super fights. Who knows, he could end up fighting a rematch against Floyd Mayweather, which would bring a lot of money to both fighters, or taking fights against Shane Mosley (last hurrah?), Miguel Cotto (this could be a candidate for Fight of the Year), or even Oscar de la Hoya; I thought that De la Hoya was definitely going to fight Hatton at Wembley, next May, but nothing is certain now and there are more probabilities of De la Hoya fighting against Cotto or even a pointless and lucrative rematch against Mayweather. Let’s also remember that Hatton said that he won’t fight again at 147, but never say never.
If Hatton wants to stay at 140 and dominate, which he could, he should start by announcing a fight against his biggest rival, Junior Witter, or against Paul Malignaggi, which would be easy work to the Hitman, judging by Malignaggi’s last performance against Ngoudjo, and would give him the IBF belt.
If he wants the big fights and the big money, he should continue fighting at 147 and agree to fight the marketable names. There is other possibility that I had the displeasure to read last week…a fight, at 140, against Manny Pacquiao, an unfortunate third option that he could choose. I would tell him to stay in the Light Welterweight division, he can dominate there –not at 147 because of the size difference, because his body is made for 140– and be remembered in history as one of the All Time Greats in that weight class.