By Chris Williams: In an indication that light welterweight Ricky Hatton is looking beyond this Saturday’s bout with Juan Lazcano, he recently said in an interview with Craig Watt of fightnews that he’s interested in a fighting WBC super featherweight champion Manny Pacquiao (46-3-2, 35 KOs), if Hatton’s bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr. fails to materialize. Hatton, though, apparently has no interest in moving down in weight to meet Pacquiao at his natural weight class of 130 lbs, meaning that if the fight were to happen Pacquiao would be the one that would have to move beyond his fighting weight in order to make the fight happen.

In this case, it would mean that Pacquiao would have to put on 10 lbs so as to move up to the 140 lb light welterweight limit in order to meet the 29 year-old Hatton. It’s perhaps interesting to see Hatton discussing such a bout, for the fight would be no doubt a highly appealing bout for most fans. Notice how Hatton basically comes right out and says he wouldn’t be moving out of his weight class, perhaps a display of his increased worth as far as fan interest goes. Pacquiao, though popular in his native country of the Philippines, is much less popular in Europe and in America as is Hatton. Naturally, that would mean that Hatton could dictate some of the terms should Pacquiao be interested in the fight.

In contrast, Hatton was the one that had to move out of his weight class previously to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. in December 2007, considering that Mayweather was by far the more popular fighter in the United States compared to Hatton. Since that time, Hatton has grown in popularity despite his loss but still lags far behind Mayweather. It’s unclear whether Pacquiao, 29, would be interested in moving up that far out of his natural weight class of 130 lbs. He is, however, moving up to fight WBC light weight champion David Diaz for his title on June 28th.

Then again, Diaz is a much less threatening fighter than Hatton, only five pounds bigger than Pacquiao, and perceived to be the weakest of the lightweight champions by many fans of boxing. It’s one thing for Pacquiao to move up to fight the likes of Diaz, and quite another thing to fight the stocky Hatton, who would be much more powerful than the slender-boned Pacquiao. Yet, Pacquiao might be persuaded to take the fight if enough money if waved in front of him, and a fight with Hatton is sure to mean a huge multi-million dollar payday for both fighters. Clearly, a fight with Hatton would be easily the biggest payday of Pacquiao’s career, eclipsing his fights with Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Marquez, Pacquiao’s biggest fights to date in his career.

This may be the best opportunity for Pacquiao to get a huge payday without having to fight someone far out of his weight class, say, a fighter like Oscar De La Hoya. Beyond Hatton, there’s only a limited amount of fighters that Pacquiao can fight that are near his weight class, yet none of them would be even close to matching Hatton in popularity. Pacquiao is coming off of a controversial split decision win over Marquez in March, a fight that many people, especially in American and Europe, feel that Pacquiao lost. Instead of fighting a rematch with Marquez, which would seem like the logical thing to do given the controversial nature of the fight, Pacquiao has instead opted to move up in weight and fight the less threatening Diaz.

Perhaps the wisest thing for Pacquiao to do would be for him to go directly from his bout with Diaz and attempt to line up a fight with Hatton. That is, if both Pacquiao and Hatton are victorious in their upcoming bouts. I think it’s wise that Pacquiao has decided on sidestepping Marquez, because I think he has his number and would likely beat him if given a third match, thus ruining any hopes that Pacquiao would have of fighting Hatton. We already saw former WBC super lightweight champion Junior Witter blow an opportunity for a fight with Hatton by losing to his number #1 challenger Timothy Bradley. Pacquiao needs to avoid the same thing from happening to him by avoiding any more tough bouts, like a rematch with Marquez, until he can set up a bout with Hatton.