By Jim Dower: In news that will probably be upsetting to Manny Pacquiao, Ricky Hatton has opted to move on to another fight instead of settling for less than a 50-50 split with Manny for their previously talked about fight on May 2nd. The apparently reached a sticking point in their negotiations after Pacquiao asked for a 60-40 purse split and Hatton wasn’t willing to agree to giving Manny the larger share.
Instead of agreeing to take less, Hatton decided today to move onto another opponent. For starters, there is talk of Hatton wanting fights with Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and the winner of the Juan Diaz & Juan Manuel Marquez fight. Mayweather would probably be the best alternative for Hatton considering that he knocked Ricky out previously in December 2007, and Hatton has wanted to avenge the defeat ever since.
The only question with that fight is whether Mayweather would want to come out of his retirement to take it. Additionally, Mayweather might be as much a problem to negotiate as Pacquiao proved to be and would likely want a big cut of the purse split due to his immense popularity in the U.S.
If this turns out to be unworkable, then Hatton can always move onto a fight against the Marquez/Diaz winner. With either of them, there’s little doubt that Hatton would be able to get the percentage that he’s looking for because he’s a much bigger start than any of them.
A fight against De La Hoya would be a question mark as to who would get the bigger pay cut. In this case, De La Hoya would likely get the bigger percentage, despite taking a ferocious beating from Pacquiao in December. Regardless of how bad De La Hoya was beaten in the fight, he remains much more well known in the U.S. compared to Hatton.
However, it’s still unknown whether De La Hoya would want to take the fight because he’s reportedly debating whether he should continue his career or not. He looked terrible in his last fight and got beaten black and blue by Pacquiao, looking like a shot fighter.
De La Hoya, though, probably won’t be able to walk away from another huge payday, even if it means taking a big risk against a puncher like Hatton. To be sure, this fight would be as equally tough on De La Hoya as his bout with Pacquiao and unless he comes in looking a lot stronger, he’s likely suffer the same fate as he did last time out.
If Hatton wants a big payday, he obviously needs to go after De La Hoya and Mayweather, because Diaz and Marquez will bring him in much less money. A fight with Mayweather is a dangerous one for Hatton, however. Floyd dominated Hatton from the 6th round until stopping him in the 10th. Hatton would have to make some big adjustments to prevent that from happening again. Hatton needs to work a lot on his boxing skills if he’s to have any chance at winning that fight.
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