How Long Will Hatton Ignore Witter?

By Chris Williams: Though many boxing scribes still feel that former IBF light welterweight champion Ricky Hatton (43-1, 31 KOs) is the best fighter in the light welterweight division, he’s beginning to get diminishing support among many fans for his steadfast refusal to fight WBC light welterweight champion Junior Witter (36-1, 21 KOs), who has been calling him out for the past two years without luck. Hatton has said that he doesn’t want to fight Witter because of the way that Witter is constantly calling him out in the press.

However, if Hatton has kept his eyes open in the sport during his career, he’d have seen that this is how it’s always done. That is, when one fighter wants to fight another fighter, particularly one that is more popular than them, they talk to the press and call out the fighter by saying something negative about them in one way or another. Hatton, for all his excuses about not like having Witter calling him out, did just that when he made negative comments in the media about Floyd Mayweather Jr. before they decided to fight one another. Mayweather, in turn, responded to Hatton with his own war of words. Shortly after that, the two agreed to fight. So, Hatton’s feelings of not liking what Witter is doing by calling him out seem to equate to something else, more likening to him just not wanting to fight him period regardless of what Witter is saying or not saying about him personally.

In turn, the television broadcasters, who tune to what the hardcore boxing fans are saying, comment on this during the television broadcasts, letting even the casual fans know about the fighter’s reluctance to fight a particular fighter. As such, all the victories that they’ve piled up, titles one and honors bestowed upon them seem to shrivel almost immediately, as they’re exposed. For this reason, what Hatton is doing by ignoring Witter seems to be a bad career move for him, especially when you see him fighting someone like Juan Lazcano, whom he fights on May 24th, a fighter that is nowhere near the same class as Junior Witter. The fans could care less about seeing Hatton fight Lazcano, whom they probably know very little about.

Witter, however, is well known in England, and also with the American fans. It terms of money and popularity, it seems like an easy decision for Hatton to make; He’s got to fight Witter, for the money, the popularity and to shut him up for good. He can’t let this go, because it’s only increasing Witter’s status while tearing down Hatton. Certainly, Hatton’s die hard fans will buy into his excuses, and perhaps forgive him for not fighting Witter, but deep down they most definitely wish he would fight him.