By James Slater: Just days after he announced he had made peace with himself and realized he had to announce his retirement from the sport as official, British hero Ricky Hatton has been offered yet another possibly tempting comeback bout: one with the recently rejuvenated Erik Morales.
The Manchester Evening News, among other media outlets, has reported that Golden Boy Oscar De La Hoya offered fellow promoter Hatton the fight this past weekend, while he was over in the UK for the Amir Khan-Paul McCloskey title fight in Manchester.
“Ricky against Morales would be a wonderful fight in Las Vegas, a great event, a meeting of two real legends of the sport,” De La Hoya said. “Erik has shown Ricky that it can be done. He was away three years but has returned to have three fights before putting on that beautiful performance against Marcos Maidana.”
It’s true, a clash between “El Terrible” and “Hitman” Hatton would sell, but is there more than a slim chance Hatton will take the bait and agree to box again? I doubt it. Sure, Morales – at age 34 two years older than Hatton – proved he can still fight, therefore possibly giving Hatton the idea that he can also; but Morales still has the desire. Hatton, as he said himself a few days ago, no longer has the desire to get up, run, spar and maintain a strict diet. Then there’s the weight the fight would be staged at if it took place.
Morales can surely box no higher than 140-pounds (the Maidana fight was his first real fight at light-welter), while it’s unclear if the Hatton of today would be able to get down as low as light-middleweight. And this is not to have a dig at Ricky. Hatton has done a great job in getting his weight down from what it was back when he was admittedly binge drinking and eating the wrong things almost daily, but this does not mean he will be able to boil down to anything approaching his old fighting weight.
Still, De La Hoya has at least planted a seed; one Hatton could act on despite the thinking against it that says he won’t. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d say the chances of Hatton coming back to fight Morales or anyone else are about a 2 at best. But stranger things have happened. And Oscar is right on one thing, there would be two genuine legends of the sport going at it (albeit fading/faded legends) if the two met in Vegas.