By William Mackay: In an article with the BBC Sport, former International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion Ricky Hatton (45-2, 32 KO’s) says he’s looking at fighting one more times in June against one of three potential opponents consisting of champions Michael Katsidis, Juan Manuel Marquez or Vyacheslav Senchenko. Hatton also says that Amir Khan is a remote possibility, but he’s not really on his list at the moment. Hatton wants to go out with a win against a world champion or a fighter that is on the pound for pound list. He doesn’t want to just get a win.
Hatton says “As long as it’s a tough world class fighter. I want to finish at the top.” Speaking about the prospects of fighting Amir Khan, Hatton says “There’s more of a chance without Frank Warren, but he [Khan] only recently left Warren. The wheels are already in motion with an opponent. Amir is not really in the picture at this moment. I want one more fight to finish at the top. Amir is not on that list at the minute, but you can’t say he’s an impossibility. It was to be a title fight, and if not a title fight, it has to be someone who’s on the pound for pound rankings, a big name in the sport. If I’m going to finish, I want to finish at the top. I don’t just want to finish with a win. I want it to be against a big name in the sport.”
What Hatton doesn’t say is what he’ll do if he loses the fight. In recent photos of Hatton attending the Andy Murray tennis match in Australia, Hatton looks really overweight. Judging from his photos, Hatton appears to be at least 30 to 35 pounds or more over his old fighting weight of 140. His arms look like huge hams and his face appears swollen from the massive amount of weight that he’s put on since being stopped by Manny Pacquiao in two rounds in May.
For Hatton to take that kind of weight off and be successful against a world champion would seem remote unless Hatton selects a small lightweight like Katsidis to fight. I highly doubt that Hatton would be able to beat Marquez. Juan would likely have a big advantage over Hatton because of the weight that Ricky will have to take off to make a fight with Marquez.
The only way I could possibly seeing Hatton winning is if he decides to fight Marquez at welterweight. Marquez looked horrible in his fight with Floyd Mayweather at welterweight last September. But even then, I think Marquez would still probably have too much ability for Hatton to deal with and I could see this fight ending in a knockout win for Marquez. Whatever the case, Hatton needs to start taking off some weight soon if he wants to be successful in his final fight of his career.
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