By Scott Gilfoid: WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi thinks a motivated Vyacheslav Senchenko (32-1, 21 KO’s) could give a rusty Ricky Hatton (45-2, 32 KO’s) all kinds of problems when they meet this Saturday night at the Manchester Arena in the UK. Malignaggi defeated Senchenko recently after puffing up one of his eyes in April. However, Malignaggi has been active unlike Hatton, who has been out of boxing for the past 3 1/2 years.

Malignaggi told thesun.co.uk “Senchenko might think ‘I lost to Malignaggi. I might as well go for broke.'”

To be honest, I think Senchenko would beat Malignaggi in a rematch, so it’s not as if Malignaggi is an expert on Senchenko. I think Malignaggi got lucky in that fight when he puffed up Senchenko’s left eye with his jabs. Malignaggi was pretty well beaten in his last fight against 22-year-old fringe contender Pablo Cesar Cano and ended up winning a controversial decision over him.

Malignaggi is hoping Hatton will get past Senchenko so that he can fight Hatton in early 2013. Hatton wants to win a world title and then retire, and Malignaggi appears to be the only one that Hatton has a reasonable chance of beating. I wouldn’t like to see what would happen if Hatton were to fight welterweight champions Floyd Mayweather Jr, Devon Alexander or Tim Bradley. Those would likely be one-sided losses for Hatton. But with Malignaggi, Hatton has got a nice opportunity to pick up a strap and then retire before having to defend it against the likes of Marcos Maidana. I think Maidana would destroy Hatton at point in his career, especially now. It would be good for Hatton to retire after beating Malignaggi then risk getting knocked cold again.

Malignaggi thinks Senchenko is vulnerable and he believes the large British crowd could throw him off by intimidating him. Hatton tends to fight with a lot of energy while fighting at home and he’ll almost surely try and blitz Senchenko in the first two rounds. This could give Senchenko a good opportunity to knock Hatton out because he leaves himself so wide open when he throws his leaping left hooks.

If Senchenko has worked on taking advantage of Hatton’s telegraphed hooks he’ll probably knock him out just like Mayweather and Pacquiao did. Even Juan Lazcano had Hatton on the verge of a knockout in 2008 and probably would have finished him off had the referee not stopped the action while Hatton getting battered to allow him to have his shoelaces tied.

If you haven’t seen the Hatton-Lazcano fight you need to watch it on Youtube because that is one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen before or since in a fight. Hatton gets badly hurt and is about to get knocked out and then referee stops the action to let him get his shoelaces tied.