By William Mackay: Ricky Hatton (45-2, 32 KO’s) will be attempting to bring his game back to the early stages of his career this Saturday night in facing former WBA welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko (32-1, 21 KO’s) in Hatton’s comeback fight at the Manchester Arena in Manchester United Kingdom.

It’s been 3 1/2 years since Hatton last fought and it’s been even longer than that since he last looked really good in the ring. You’d have to go back as far as 2005 to when Hatton last was fighting at a high level using movement and fast shots. After 2005, Hatton stopped using movement and started attacking his opponents in straight lines.

Despite the bad habits that Hatton developed, he still kept winning until he met up with Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. Those guys knocked him out and sent him into retirement. Now Hatton’s back and promising to recapture the form he had many moons ago.

Hatton said “[I’m going to] use that good movement, that good footwork, the good movement off the sides like I did years ago when I was with Billy Graham. And I can bring that back to form, which I’m 100 percent confident I will, what I’ve got should be too much for him [Senchenko].”

You’d like to see Hatton experiment in trying to recapture his long lost form against someone a little easier than Senchenko because this guy can fight and he’s got a sizable height and reach advantage over Hatton. Senchenko has a healthy punch and we’ve already seen how Hatton’s chin is vulnerable in his KO losses to Mayweather and Pacquiao. Amir Khan takes criticism about having a weak chin by a lot of boxing fans, but with the way that Hatton was hurt by Juan Lazcano and stopped by Mayweather and Pacquiao, you’ve got to put Hatton in the same class as Khan in terms of his chin. For that reason it’s maybe not a good idea for Hatton to be fighting someone as advanced and dangerous as Senchenko in his first fight back.

Hatton doesn’t plan on fighting for long in his comeback. He just wants a win over Senchenko and then a victory over WBA World welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi and then Hatton will go back into retirement having proven his point. Beating Malignaggi isn’t that big of a deal because he’s considered a paper champion in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans and he’s coming off a life and death battle against 22-year-old fringe contender Pablo Cesar Cano last month in a 12 round split decision win.

Beating Malignaggi won’t prove much for Hatton other than he can beat a hand-picked paper champion. Now if Hatton were to stick around long enough to fight Mayweather, Tim Bradley or Devon Alexander and beat one or all of those guys, then that would be very impressive. But beating Malignaggi won’t impress too many fans because Malignaggi isn’t considered a great welterweight and Hatton already has a knockout win over him back in 2008. Fighting Malignaggi again is like repeating an earlier accomplishment.