By Jim Dower: With only a month left before Ricky Hatton’s (44-1, 31 KOs) light welterweight showdown with Paulie Malignaggi (25-1, 5 KOs), there has been very little fan interest for this bout. Although I frankly can’t says I’m surprised that no one really cares to see it, because Malignaggi was a poor choice as an opponent to begin with. And when Malignaggi gave up his IBF light welterweight title, the little interest I had in the fight completely died out. Instead of the IBF title being on the line, there’s only Hatton’s little known IBO trinket.

One of Hatton’s rationales for choosing Malignaggi rather than, say, the WBC light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley, was that Malignaggi had Hatton’s former IBF title. I’m not sure what the appeal was for Hatton in trying to recapture that particular title rather than the WBC belt, because both of them seem the same to me, but I suppose Hatton was sentimental or something. With that said, when the title was removed from the picture recently when Malignaggi vacated the belt, the sole reason for Malignaggi was effectively eliminated. At that point, why fight him at all? The much more appealing option then, at least as far as I’m concerned, was for Hatton to give up the idea of fighting Malignaggi and instead go after the WBC belt held by Bradley.

As things stand, Bradley is already considered by many boxing experts as the second best light welterweight in the division after Hatton, and would probably be a much more exciting fight, for the boxing fan’s sake, for Hatton to have given up on Malignaggi and chosen Bradley instead. To be sure, Bradley, who recently defeated Edner Cherry in a one-sided 12-round decision, would likely make easy work of Malignaggi if given the chance. It seems somewhat sad and forlorn for Hatton to choose an opponent that isn’t considered the top of the division.

I could understand Hatton facing Malignaggi if there was a belt involved or if he was Hatton’s mandatory, but without those circumstances involved, there’s really no point in taking the fight. Malignaggi hasn’t looked good in quite some time, getting gift decisions over Lovemore N’dou and Herman Ngoudjo in 2008, fights that I saw Malignaggi losing. If I was Hatton, I wouldn’t waste my time fighting Malignaggi, not after viewing both of those terrible fights. I personally couldn’t get motivated for a fighter that won like that, because they both looked so questionable to me.

If I was desperate for a title, and didn’t have confidence in myself, then, yeah, I’d fight Malignaggi, but never under any other circumstances. I’m not sure if boxing fans feel the same as I do, but in one look around the various boxing forums on the net, I see little interest in this fight from fans. Typically when Hatton is fighting someone, there is already a huge amount of interest in his fights, but not this time. It doesn’t help Hatton that Malignaggi has looked horrible in his last two fights, especially his last one from which he came into the ring with long hair extensions that got into his eyes continuously in the early rounds.

Eventually, the hair had to be cut in between rounds in order for Malignaggi to see. Hair or no hair, Malignaggi looked terrible and stank up the ring on that night, looking to have fought to a narrow decision loss or a draw, at best. If Hatton was trying to resurrect his career after his 10th round stoppage loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in December 2007, and his equally poor performance against Juan Lazcano five months later in May, then Hatton overestimated Malignaggi’s appeal with fans.

Believe me, if Hatton wanted to regain fan respect, he needed to go after someone like Bradley. Heck, the fans would have probably settled for Junior Witter if Hatton wasn’t feeling brave enough to take on Bradley. However, in selecting Malignaggi, that appears to have been an awful selection, one thought up by whom, I have no idea.

To make matters worse, Hatton recently signed on Floyd Mayweather Sr. as a new trainer, replacing his trusty old trainer Billy Graham. It seems like another questionable decision on Hatton’s part, because Mayweather Sr. is more of a defensive trainer, and I can’t imagine that anything good will come of him trying to turn Hatton into a more defensive fighter. What it probably will do, however, is make him more cautious, enough so where he possibly losses to Malignaggi.