By Barry Holbrook: Ricky Hatton will be coming back this summer for an exhibition match against 48-year-old former three-division world champion Marco Antonio Barrera on July 2nd in Manchester, England.
If Hatton is using this fight against ‘The Baby-Faced Assassin’ Barrera (67-7, 44 KOs) as a test to gauge what he’s got left so that he can potentially come back for real, he’s picked the right guy. Hatton (45-3, 32 KOs) should do well against Barrera, given that the Mexican star is fast closing in on 50.
Hatton has got a ton of weight to lose before July 2nd, and it’s hard to imagine him being able to trim down to his old fighting weight of 140-lbs.
If the exhibition takes place at 160 or 168, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem for Hatton to trim off enough weight to fight in either of those weight classes.
Some boxing fans believe that the 43-year-old Hatton’s decision to come back is because he’s in need of money after retiring in 2012. That’s hard to imagine, given that Hatton’s net worth is estimated to be a whopping $40 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
The once-popular Hatton’s career went belly-up after his second-round knockout loss to the Filipino star Manny Pacquiao in 2009.
After retiring for three years, gaining a bunch of weight, Hatton trimmed down and returned to the ring without the benefit of a tune-up to face former WBA welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko in an ill-advised fight in 2012.
Though Hatton looked good for a ring-rusty fighter that had lost huge amounts of weight in training camp, he ultimately was stopped in the ninth round by a body shot from Senchenko.
In hindsight, it was a really dumb idea for Hatton to fight a welterweight with some pop in his punches like Senchenko for his comeback rather than a smaller fighter from the 135 or 140-lb divisions.
Hatton could have beaten fringe contenders from those weight classes when he returned to the ring after three years. Choosing the welterweight Senchenko was a bone-headed move on Hatton’s part.
After the defeat against Senchenko, Hatton retired and has stayed out of the ring ever since. Hatton still had a lot left, but he couldn’t stick with it.
His habit of gaining weight in between fights ultimately caught up to him because he probably would have beaten Senchenko without any problems if he’d been active and not lost so much weight in training camp.
If it’s just about money for Hatton, he can probably make some good coin by focusing on exhibition matches exclusively. Who wouldn’t want to see Hatton and Floyd Mayweather Jr or Kostya Tszyu mix it up again?
How about Hatton vs. Oscar De La Hoya or Shane Mosley? Felix Trinidad, Fernando Vargas, or Bernard Hopkins would be excellent potential foes for Hatton.
Ricky Hatton’s best wins:
- Jose Luis Castillo
- Kostya Tszyu
- Paulie Malignaggi
- Juan Lazcano
- Luis Collazo
- Juan Urango
- Carlos Maussa
- Ben Tackie
- Vince Phillips
