By Scott Gilfoid: Ricky Hatton has been avoiding light welterweight Junior Witter (37-2, 22 KO’s) for as long as I can remember, and has a number of reasons for not fighting him most of it having to deal with Witter calling him out all the time. I don’t know about you, but I never realized that was such a crime that would get Hatton upset enough not to fight Witter.

Hatton needs to fight Witter and take his beating like a man, and then get out of the sport if he so chooses. The main thing is Hatton needs to give Witter the fight, so that Witter can further his career by beating Hatton senseless like Manny Pacquiao did.

I always thought that Witter was the much better fighter than Hatton by a long shot. Witter has speed, power and boxing skills that are a class above Hatton from what I can see of him. Hatton is said to be possibly looking at one more fight before he hangs up his gloves for good.

I think Hatton owes it to Witter to give him a deserving fight so that they can finally find out who the best light welterweight fighter is in the UK. Now some would say that Amir Khan should be factored into the mix, but until Khan proves that he’s good enough to beat Kotelnik, he doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same categories as Hatton and Witter.

Hatton at least has fought a few good fighters in his career like Luis Collazo, Floyd Mayweather, Pacquiao, Kostya Tszyu and Paulie Malignaggi, even though Hatton lost two of the fights and probably should have lost to Collazo as well. It’s unknown what would have happened in the Tszyu fight if Hatton had been forced to fight without wrestling on the inside. I suspect Hatton would have been knocked out in the fight or disqualified for holding.

There are some people who think that Hatton will be looking for another soft touch in his next fight. I wish I could dispel this notion but I think Hatton will probably be doing just that. He won’t want to get knocked out again and because of his indecision about his career, he probably will be sticking to finding an easy opponent that he has a better chance at beating.

I’m okay with this as long as it’s not Hatton’s last fight and as long as it doesn’t develop into another lengthy habit. If this is Hatton’s last fight, then he needs to do the honorable thing and give Witter a long awaited fight.

That way Hatton could be seen in a more favorable light and not seen as a dodger as he bows out of the sport. Witter, 35, has proved his quality in the ring in the past three years holding down the WBC light welterweight title until losing it by a close decision to Timothy Bradley in a 12 round split decision loss last year.

Bradley is considered to be the best fighter in the light welterweight division and yet Witter came very close to beating him. Hatton, if he wants to prove that he’s at least the number #2 guy in the division, needs to fight Witter and prove that he’s in his league as a fighter.

Right now, I don’t consider Hatton anywhere close to being as good as Witter, so this is a good chance for Hatton to at least prove that he’s the best light welterweight in the UK.