By William Mackay: Former International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (27-3, 5 KO’s) says he wants a rematch with Ricky Hatton, who defeated Malignaggi by an 11th round stoppage in November 2008. The loss, a bitter one for Malignaggi, has stuck to his craw, because he felt that the one-sided fight shouldn’t have been stopped. But regardless of whether it was stopped or not, Malignaggi would have still lost the fight because he was well behind in the fight at the time of the stoppage and needed a knockout to win.

Without any power to speak of, Malignaggi had virtually no chance of beating Hatton on that night. In an article at East Side Boxing, Malignaggi says “Hatton is the most important thing to me because it’s a loss that shouldn’t be on my record. Hatton is the most important fight to me out of any possible fight out there.”

It’s easy to understand why Malignaggi would want to fight Hatton at this point. That’s a fight where Malignaggi would stand to get his biggest payday. Malignaggi has a fight against World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan on May 15th at Madison Square Garden, in New York. However, Khan will be getting the lion’s share of the purse for that fight, and Malignaggi won’t be getting a huge pay day for this one.

Few boxing experts are giving Malignaggi a chance in that fight because he doesn’t have the power or the hand speed to compete with the young 23-year-old Khan. A loss against Khan will erase any chance for Malignaggi to get a fight against Hatton in the future. However, Hatton isn’t likely going to go over old ground and fight an opponent that he’s just beaten, especially one like Malignaggi who has been beaten in two out of his last four fights.

There’s an argument that can be made that Khan shouldn’t be facing Malignaggi, not with Malignaggi struggling in his last four bouts and a fighter like WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (27-1, 26 KO’s) ready and willing to fight Khan instead.

Malignaggi seems to be in denial about his loss to Hatton, saying “It has nothing to do with Ricky Hatton’s punch power because he has none. He’s an average 140 pound puncher. It has nothing to do with anything else, but the fact that I had the wrong trainer training me for two years.”

Malignaggi was trained at the time by Buddy McGirt. I somehow doubt that the feather-fisted Malignaggi would have been able to beat a slugger like Hatton no matter who was training Malignaggi at the time. He just plain didn’t have the power to compete with Hatton, and even if Malignaggi had run around the ring like he did recently in beating Juan Diaz last December, Hatton would have still gotten to him and made him pay.

Malignaggi says “Ricky Hatton should send a Christmas card to Buddy McGirt every single year blessing him for the fact that he got to fight Manny Pacquiao.”

If Hatton wants an easy tune-up fight for his first bout back after his knockout last year against Pacquiao, Malignaggi would be the perfect opponent. By then, Malignaggi will have likely been beaten up and taken out by Khan. If Hatton doesn’t mind facing Malignaggi at this point, he’s got an easy opponent for a comeback fight.