By Michael Lieberman: I have no idea what’s going on with Ricky Hatton’s brain but he needs to wise up quickly, realize his worth and take the 40% purse offered to him by Manny Pacquiao. As far as I can tell, that’s a great offer from Pacquiao and Hatton should consider himself lucky to get such a high amount from Manny. I agree with Scott Gilfoid, I don’t think Hatton has done enough in the ring to deserve equal pay with a fighter as good as Pacquiao.
If it were my choice, I’d give Hatton a much lower deal, something along the lines of the type of competition that he’s faced in his career. In looking at Hatton’s rather ordinary resume, I find it hard to see him worth much more than half of what Pacquiao has generously offered him.
How can Hatton want equal footing with Pacquiao financially when he’s not even beaten the best fighters in the light welterweight division? He needs to shut his trap and start fighting some good fighters for a change instead of the Juan Lozano’s and the Paulie Malignaggi-types that Hatton has been feasting on.
If you spend a career fighting a lot subpar fighters, then you don’t deserve to be paid the same as fighters that have. Pacquiao has proven himself again and again as the best fighter in boxing, beating the likes of Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Marquez, whereas in Hatton’s case, perhaps his biggest win of his career was a 11th round TKO over an old and washed up Kostya Tszyu in 2005.
Apart from that, there’s really not much else to get excited about with Hatton’s record. He lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr., so you can’t throw his name out as a reason why Hatton would deserve to be paid 50% for the Pacquiao bout.
Admittedly, Hatton remains popular in England, but that place is really small and there’s not a lot of good fighters over there, so it’s hard to blame the fans for wanting to get behind Hatton. But consider that Hatton, after an 11-year pro career, has still yet to fight a career-defining fight against a truly quality fighter (in their prime) and won.
When I say quality, I’m referring to fighters like Mayweather, Pacquiao, Timothy Bradley, Junior Witter, Marquez, not ones like Juan Urango, Luis Collazo, Lazcano and Michael Stewart. Hatton may be popular with fans, but that doesn’t mean that he’s earned the right to fight someone as talented as Pacquiao and be paid the same thing as him.
In my book, you got to earn by walking the walk, proving it in the ring against the best fighters in your division and not giving excuses when people ask you why you’re not fighting such in such fighter. Hatton should have long ago fought Witter, Kendall Holt, Ricardo Torres and Bradley, yet he’s failed to do so. For that, Hatton doesn’t deserve to be paid 50% for his bout with Pacquiao and should be happy with whatever is being offered to him by the Filipino star.
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