By Scott Gilfoid: Ricky Hatton doesn’t think it’s such a good idea for 42-year-old Oscar De La Hoya to face a slugger like WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) in his first fight of his potential comeback. De La Hoya has been saying over and over again that he only wants to fight the very best when or if he comes back, and he only wants Golovkin or Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Hatton, who is no stranger to ill-advised comebacks of his own, thinks that De La Hoya isn’t a real middleweight, and that he could be in trouble if he comes back to face a knockout artist like Golovkin. Hatton was blasted out in nine rounds when he came out of a three year retirement to face former WBA welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko in 2012.
The thing is Hatton was ahead in the fight in the 9th when he was nailed with a body shot and taken out. Like De La Hoya, Hatton chose not to take any tune-up fights. He also reportedly had to take off a great deal of weight during training camp to get down to the weight for the fight.
It’s pretty clear that Hatton didn’t go about his comeback the right way. He should have taken more time off to lose the weight, and he should have a series of tune-ups against far lesser opposition than Senchenko. It was a poorly thought out comeback attempt for Hatton, and it’s not surprising that it failed miserably. De La Hoya appears to be on the verge of following Hatton’s blueprint for a comeback, but it’s far worse for De La Hoya because he wants to fight the very best fighter at 160, a weight class that De La Hoya only fought at a couple of times in his career.
“Oscar has never really been a middleweight so the idea of him fighting such a ferocious puncher as Gennady Golovkin, I can’t see it being a pleasant comeback,” Hatton said via Skysports.com. “I hope I’m wrong because I consider him a friend and I don’t want to see him get hurt.”
De La Hoya was poised to fight Hatton back in 2008 before getting taken out by Manny Pacquiao. If the two of them had fought, it would have been a huge money fight.
Hatton should be the one making a comeback. He’s not that old, and if he did it the right way with taking a lot of tune-ups, he could make some good cash with a big money fight against someone like Amir Khan or Kell Brook. If Hatton took off the blubber slowly, beat up seven or eight 3rd tier fighters, I think he could cash out big time with a Khan fight or maybe Brook if he’s still holding onto the IBF title by that point.
A fight between Hatton and De La Hoya would be even more interesting. Instead of De La Hoya being obliterated by Golovkin, I think he should fight Hatton. It would truly be a tossup fight. How can you bet on either guy at this point with both of them coming out of retirement? It would give Hatton a good excuse to take off a lot of weight, and he’d look a 100 percent better than he has since his last failed comeback in 2012.
“Do I think it’s the right decision? No, I have to say I don’t,” Hattons said about De La Hoya. “Needless to say, I wish him all the very best but he’s 42. It’s just so hard to finally hard to say goodbye to the sport.”
Comments are closed.