Can Ricky Hatton burn off enough blubber for a comeback?

By Boxing News - 07/01/2015 - Comments

hatton34342By Scott Gilfoid: With 42-year-old Oscar De La Hoya recently talking about making a comeback to the sport before changing his mind to stay retired, it makes one think of former two division world champion Ricky Hatton (45-3, 32 KOs) as someone who is due for another comeback attempt of his own. He’d just need to take off a wee bit of weight first.

In comparison to De La Hoya, the 37-year-old Hatton is a young chicken. He’s still young enough to fight and possibly even succeed against the right opposition. But for Hatton to make a comeback, he’s going to need to burn the blubber off that he’s put on because he’s gotten quite heavy.

Just by looking at some of Hatton’s recent photos, I’d say he needs to strip off around 40 to 50 pounds to get him into top fighting weight.

Hatton has always been good at burning off the lard, so I think he could take the weight off no problem. I just think he would need to take the weight off slowly if he wants to avoid being weight drained for his comeback fight.

Hatton can make big, big bank if he comes back and takes the right fight.

Unfortunately for him, he wouldn’t be able to make the big money by fighting Britain’s top welterweights Amir Khan and Kell Brook, because neither of them have become stars yet due their soft opposition they’ve faced during their long careers. But if Hatton comes back now, he might get lucky and get a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.

If those guys didn’t want the fight, then you can bet that WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin would be willing to melt down to 154 to face Hatton. As big as Hatton has gotten, I think he’d more than happy to fight at 154, rather than having to burn off the blubber to get down to 147 to fight the top welterweights. Golovkin would be perfect if Mayweather, Pacquiao, Cotto and Canelo turn up their noses at the idea of fighting Hatton.

Hatton made a comeback three years ago when he came out of a three-year retirement to face former WBA welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko in November of 2012 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, UK. Hatton was ahead on the scorecards when he was dropped by a body shot in the 9th. It was too hard of a shot, and he was counted out. But it was such a waste for Hatton to comeback against a guy like that. With all the big money fights out there for Hatton, why in the heck did he choose Senchenko? Hatton should have made and effort to get Pacquiao or Mayweather back then instead of a little known guy like Senchenko.

If Hatton wants to come back for one big payday, he can make a lot of cash. If nothing else, Hatton can take the green stuff that he gets from his big money fight against Mayweather or Pacquiao, and dump into his promotional company Hatton Promotions to make them more competitive with companies like Matchroom Sport and Golden Boy Promotions.



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