By Liam Fitzgerald: A lot of writers and contributors on this website have got into a habit of something that really annoys me.

No, it’s not the ridiculous, childish criticism of a great fighter because they prefer another one (Manny Pacquiao and Folyd Mayweather for example. What is irritating, and completely illogical, is how people criticize fighters for “avoiding” others that when in their prime were absolutely nobodies.

A prime example of this is Ricky Hatton who recently was criticized for not fighting men like Marcos Maidana and Devon Alexander in his prime. This for me is completely ridiculous. When Hatton won his first world title, he had beaten the main man in the division and went on to unify the belt in his next fight before beating a future world champion in his next fight at 140. Ok, Urango and Maussa were maybe not the best of opponents and people like Ricardo Torres, Vivian Harris and Miguel Cotto at that time were the main men at light welterweight but his choices of opponent were not at all cherry picking.

Likewise, in the period 2005-7 Alexander had only been in the ring with bums and had not beaten anyone in the top 100 of the 140 division. Maidana as well fought for the first time outside of Argentina in 2007 and had no wins of note on his record at this time. When these men came to prominence, Hatton was pursuing fights with p4p number 1’s and true he did lose convincingly both times, but he took these fights to improve his legacy. What would the fans had said if he had turned down Mayweather or Pacquiao for the young Alexander. He would have rightly received a lot of negative press.

This isn’t just me backing up for Hatton though. I believe there are many fighters who are getting a disservice from fans saying these types of things. What are people going to say in the future? Will Pacquiao get discredited for not fighting Kell Brook should the Englishman become a huge world star in the future? Of course he shouldn’t, everybody knows that he is nowhere near ready for a fighter of Pacman’s stature even if he has won an eliminator for his title and that he would likely be destroyed should they fight now.

I don’t mind people disliking a fighter, that’s part of the sport and a reason why we support the fighters we do actually like. However, I wish fans would start giving valid reasons for why they don’t like someone. If you hate their style or personality, that is ok but please don’t make up stupid arguments like these ones to back up your reason for not supporting them. Boxing’s a tough sport and every fighter must earn some respect for what they do so at least show them that when making your point.