Ricky Hatton: Can He Save British Boxing?
August 18th, 2009
By Liam Santiago: If more top boxers had the same attitude towards the sport as Ricky Hatton, it would not be in the state it is. Boxing is constantly losing fans to UFC, mainly as a result of the best not fighting the best. Of course, Hatton is an exception. He has constantly pushed himself to fight the best fighters including Mayweather and Pacquiao.
Boxing is constantly losing fans, especially in Britain. There is very rarely a boxing event on television that you can view apart from Hatton, Haye, Khan and the undercards of them three. David Haye has not fought in a very long time due to constant disputes over money. Amir Khan has recently been crowned a world champion by beating slow, basic plodder, Andriy Kotelnik. Khan now plans on doing some ‘legend bashing’, in other words, beating the likes of Morales and Barrera again. Hatton however, constantly fights the greatest. He called Mayweather out and went up a division to fight him. After that defeat he did not take the Amir Khan route and fanny around the edges. What did he do? He went after Manny Pacquiao.
In harsh times for boxing in Britain, such as these, Hatton is exactly the type of guy that keeps the sport alive. He was initially the one to revitalize British boxing and he is the one to save it. Who wants to see Khan beat Morales? Or hear about Haye pulling out again due to money? We know if Hatton comes back he will fight the very best, which is more than we can say for Amir Khan.
44 Responses to “Ricky Hatton: Can He Save British Boxing?”
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Hatton cannot save british boxing. He cannot even save his belt to the pacman.LoL
1st of all…your no expert. Boxing is bigger than its ever been and is NOT losing its fans to UFC. The beginning of 09′ had some exceptionally good boxing matches…there are big cards all the time and the best are fighting the best.
Hatton’s career is 95% of his fights in the UK with PICKED OPPONENTS/BUMS. Tszyu you say? Referee Dave Parris is the guy who really won that fight. There were over 38 fouls committed by Hatton that night…Parris let it ride and Tszyu quit because he knew he couldn’t win at such a disadvantage fighting two opponents. I’m sure he didn’t want to go out like McClellan did when he came over to fight Nigel Benn.
McClellan was a 4-1 favorite but only cleared 62k, Benn made 700k. Point is that fight should have been stopped in the 1st round. But chitty officiating ruined a mans career/life.
Hatton is a top b+ level fighter on his best day.
ha ha I like hatton but he just came up short against two of the best no shame in that ,I thought he should have given mayweather more credit after he lost their fight though.
Not too many British boxing fans left…they’re all blaming Hatton for living on the street after he told them to bet their house on the Pacquiao fight…LOL.
Hatton was very very good but never the best ,which is a great achievement in itself!He got beat by two great fighters ,I think his lifestyle caught up with him when he mixed with the best.
Collazo beat Hatton in there bout. Collazo beat Andre Berto too, The “People Champion” Collazo is ready again for a rematch against Hatton or Berto he clearly win bother fights,but he got Robbed by the Judges. Now you say is Ricky coming back to fight again. I don’t think so, Zab is calling Ricky a Paper Champion and he’s willing to travel to Great Britian to fight Ricky Fatton the Paper Chump. Zab.J vs. Ricky.H
treu great articel keep them coming he is the true peopls champ….not mayweather or paqciou can claim to have gone after the best hattong on the other hand can has a does.
this guy liam talks a load of rubbish…hatton had about 40 fights fighting bums, how did you work out hes good for brit boxing, hes lazy and always out of shape..hes the worst example for a boxer..hatton fought guys tyhat most would only dream of fighting, of course hes going to take those fights, but what about the lesser names who were a threat like witter he never made that fight happen…liam you are a joke
If Collazo sucks,What does say about Hatton,Collazo beat himn up and hurt Continually during their match.He should be a man and give Collazo a return.
He ducked that bum Witter,After the Thaxton fight Witter challenged him infront of everybody he was definitely afraid.
If Collazo sucks that bad then it’s sad the Hatton so much trouble “beating” him? Hatton didn’t. Collazo was robbed. that was one of the dirtiest fight i’ve witnessed.. it’s one thing to watch a fight but when you’re the fight and you actually hear people who were cheering for Hatton at first be disapointed cuz the fight was given to him just makes it that much worse.
collazo sucks!!! he got drop in first round, he doesn’t have the balls to fight p4p fighters” get off of that high horse of yours”
“there is only one ricky hatton” ricky hatton will come back. he has too mach heart to retire. mark f stick to UFC, ricky hatton has a BIG!!! fan base in the UK, when hitman fights it becomes a national attention.
how can it just be about hatton , i mean ricky is a great fighter but there is plenty more talent out there, starting with david haye possible next heavyweight champ, carl froch possible winner of the super 5 compettion which would make him a superstar, amir khan has all the skills in the world and is still young and can win some major fights , kel brook what a fighter he is , tyson fury , james degale,frankie gavin , billy joe saunders, darren sutherland (irish) tony jeffries, joe murray, john murray , jamie cox, david price, george groves, derik chisora , tony bellow, jamie moore, nicky cook(still time to get back on track) sam sexton , tell me if i have missed any?
American fighters suck
at least ricky had the balls to go in with the best when they were at there best and he did it his way
Stop calling yourself a ‘boxing expert’, you may have convinced yourself you are, but your not fooling anyone else.
Ban the biased writers from this site!
davey dnt forget kell brook, hes coming up alongside cleverley
liam ur an idiot, i was a fan of urs at first because ur articles are often about stuff im interested in especially as im a huge hatton fan. but ur articles are so biased and im sick of u saying ”as a boxing expert”, who the hell do u fink u r
american boxers are a bunch of pussies, terrible to watch
Liam i think LALA just rinsed you big time.
Theres absolutly nothing wrong with the state of British boxing and theres no proof anywhere that Boxing is losing viewers to th UFC.
If numbers are down then so be it but there is little suggest that its becaus people would rather watch MMA.
WHO CARES ABOUT BRITISH FIGHTERS EVERYONE KNOWS THAT AMERICANS AND MEXICANS ARE THE BEST FIGHTERS!
Hatton can’t save British boxing because he’s too busy crying himself to sleep after the Pacquiao loss.
Ricky Hatton cant save british boxing……But Carl Froch can
shadow take no notice mate your not a turnip your a radish ha ha
A lot of US fans tend to forget about our prospects coming up because they are too busy hyping theirs. I don’t think boxing is losing fans in the UK in fact the sport seems to be growing again mainly because of the recent successes of Khan, Hatton and Calzaghe. But a lot of people need to look out for prospects like Moore, Cleverly and Kell Brook because there is a chance that all of them could reach world level and maybe even stand out amongst the p4p!
Liam – Will you stop with the Ricky Hatton articles.
Steve keep taking the pills you sad person.
‘sigh’ another “FAST FOOD” article.
SHADOW,wot ever ur smoking u need 2 sleep it off u have ad 2 much
ricky hatton should retire and take up darts
hahaha haahahaa … that’s your foul language?? you insults are as weak as your fighters… lol.. wow how do you “insult” someone and ask for forgiveness all in one sentence lol.. isn’t turnip some type of food in some countries or something lol..
F.A.O ‘Shadow’
You also are a turnip. Again apologies for foul language!!
British boxers suck… . . .
Steve you moron, Hatton was not losing on all three score cards. Before Tszyu quit, the judges scored the bout, 105-104, 106-103 and 107-102 all in favour for Hatton, so even if Tszyu had come out for the final round and had even won that round it would still have been a majority decsion for the Hitman. Don’t post stupid stuff that you don’t know about okay?
and liam, stop saying your a boxing expert
Steve bums get knocked out by average fighters, not the best two in the world. So basically shut your silly mouth.
Will you stop calling yourself a boxing expert you moron!
Hatton is an overrated bum. he got lucky against kostya tszyu cuz he was down on the cards, all kostya had to do was come out. and let’s not forget kostya tszyu was old. hatton got demolished against pacquiao and beat pretty one sided against mayweather. his whole inflated career was off fightin bums and club fighters. his greatest wins were against journeyman and decent contenders. i don’t even know why people still think he’s good, i thought the loss to pacquiao proved once and for all hes an overrated boring fighter that just hugs.
lisa, where’s the anti-pacman articles? LOL!
oooo liam got burned
what do you mean bad time for british boxing?? haye challenging for the heavyweight title.. carl froch involved in the super six tourney.. khan a world champ(despite who he beat- kotelnik is a good solid fighter).. we have kevin mitchell challenging for the featherweight title soon, a load of good prospects…tyson fury, nathan cleverly, darren sutherland, james degale, billy joe saunders, tony jeffries, john murray. and many more.. jamie moore the european light-middleweight champ is looking for a world title shot, anthony small looked good in his last fight, hatton may be fighting again and possibly against khan now thats a great uk fight..nathan cleverly looks like a beast in the making..do i need to give any more examples of why british boxing does NOT need saving?
People can bad mouth Hatton all they want but they will never be able to say that he ducked fighters. He strove for glory but never quite made it losing only twice and both times to the p4p champs. there is no shame in that.
He will have to get back in line a few spaces back.
hatton is not dedicated enough