by James Slater – Once a rival always a rival. Junior Witter, the man who has well and truly been seeing out his own top level career while in the shadow of his light-welterweight countryman Ricky Hatton, is still talking about the man he has always wanted to meet in the ring. Though his even fighting again is in doubt after what the lethal Manny Pacquiao did to him one week ago, Hatton is still a fighter “The Hitter” is talking about facing..
Some say Witter is jealous of Hatton, what with all the fame, money and adulation “The Hitman” has enjoyed while he, conversely, has toiled in relative obscurity. In any case, the 35-year-old former WBC 140-pound champion has gone on record as saying he would still relish an all-British showdown with the 30-year-old, but that he feels the fight has a very slim chance of happening.
Witter has also joined those people who say Hatton will have a hard road back if he decides to try and box on after what happened on May 2nd.
“I can’t remember a world title [fight] when somebody got blazed like that,” Witter told Telegraph and Argus when discussing the Hatton-Pacquiao fight. “Hatton’s loss to Floyd Mayweather was a big beating but that was a total annihilation. Every right hook from Pacquiao had an effect and drained him. Then the straight lefts rocked his head back.
“From the first 30 seconds you could see there was only one winner. The finishing punch was one in a million. You don’t get a better performance than that.”
Few would disagree with Witter’s assessment of last Saturday’s fight, but would Junior come out on top if the unlikely happened and he and “The Hitman” did wind up squaring off, either this year or next?
Witter said he is almost sure Hatton will call it quits now, even though he hopes he fights him instead.
“I don’t think last week changes anything,” Witter said. “Before the fight I thought Hatton would retire and, after the beating he took, he’s got to now. If I was Ricky Hatton I would have fought me first! And if he does come back there’s only one fight to put him back on top and that’s me.
“He doesn’t want to work with Frank Warren, so that rules out Amir Khan. And he doesn’t want to box me, period. He’s a multi-millionaire who doesn’t need to fight again for the money. Unfortunately, people will remember Hatton for three fights: wining against Kostya Tszyu, getting beaten up by Floyd and the annihilation from Pacquiao.”
Junior may be right on that last note, but at least Hatton took risks and took on guys like Mayweather and “Pac-Man.” How would Junior have fared had he met either of those two greats himself?