By William Mackay: For the past couple of weeks there’s been rumors of a comeback fight for Ricky Hatton against WBA World welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi. It’s still unknown whether Hatton will make the comeback, but he’s lost a lot of weight recently and looked to be within 20 to 25 pounds of making welterweight if he decides on coming back. Malignaggi says he’d love to face Hatton again to try and avenge a knockout loss to him in 2008.
Joe Calzaghe and Carl Froch, however, are both against Hatton coming back, and they prefer that he stays retired.
Calzaghe said this on Sky Ringside “I hope not. I wouldn’t want to see him [Hatton] fight again, but it was easy for me because I was undefeated. I know it’s difficult because he got knocked out by Manny Pacquiao. That’s a difficult and hard thing to accept for your last ever fight. Maybe it’s burning to comeback and have one last fight.”
Froch said “You don’t want to retire and go out like that. We know he likes to drink. He eats well. He goes up in weight between fights. I think if he goes back in the gym and stars working hard. he’ll realize that the fights not there and physically. He’s not officially come out of retirement and I don’t think he should.”
One can’t blame Hatton for wanting to come out of retirement for one last fight, especially if it’s against a fighter like Malignaggi, who he completely dominated in his victory over him in the past. Hatton really had Malignaggi’s number, and it’s not hard to imagine that he can still beat Malignaggi even now. Hatton would be accomplishing a lot of he were to successfully make the comeback, because he’d win the WBA title and he could very well get a second fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Hatton wants to avenge that loss, but he didn’t stick around long enough afterwards to get a second fight against Mayweather. A victory over Malignaggi would almost guarantee a second fight against Mayweather because Floyd is running out of opponents to fight and Hatton would be ideal for hi right now.
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