By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBC light welterweight champion Junior Witter (41-5-2, 22 KO’s) believes that Ricky Hatton (45-2, 32 KO’s) is afraid to fight him and thinks Hatton never wanted to fight him at all even years ago when Witter and him were considered the best light welterweights in the UK.

Witter told the Sportsmole.co.uk “Ricky never wanted [to fight] before, so why would he want it now? He’s scared of me. He doesn’t want the fight. There’s nothing else to it…I don’t expect it to happen.”

I don’t expect it to happen either. Witter, now the British welterweight champion, has a fight this Thursday night against Frankie Gavin (13-0, 10 KO’s) at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, London, United Kingdom, and I don’t expect anything to change even if Witter beats Gavin. There’s just no interest from Hatton’s side for this fight. I can understand it now that Witter has been beaten a bunch of a times in the last four years. He took losses to Tim Bradley, Devon Alexander, Victor Lupo Puiu and Yassine El Maachi. Witter has since won his last four fights, including an impressive 12 round unanimous decision victory over British welterweight champion Colin Lynes last May. However, I don’t see Hatton showing any interest in fighting Witter now matter who he beats.

A lot of boxing fans felt that Hatton was afraid of Witter back when Witter was in his prime, before he started losing a lot. Witter’s style of fighting was a bad style for Hatton because Witter specialized in making his opponents miss and was good at picking them off with quick shots that they didn’t see coming. As we saw in Hatton’s losses to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, Hatton has problems with fighters with quick hands.

Witter might have been able to do the same thing with Hatton that Pacquiao and Mayweather did. I can’t see anything being different now because Witter is still very fast of hand and foot despite 38. I could see Witter knocking Hatton out with a punch he doesn’t see coming just as Mayweather and Pacquiao did to him.