Last week, Floyd Mayweather Jnr hinted that he wanted to come out of retirement to fight Ricky Hatton next year. The British boxer’s lawyer, Gareth Williams, then confirmed that the American had approached Hatton’s camp with ambitions of a fascinating rematch.
Mayweather was, of course, the man that Hatton succumbed to his only career defeat to date when he forced the Manchester boxer to retire inside ten rounds back in December 2007. However, despite Mayweather’s reported interest, it seems that Hatton and his team have other priorities right now.
Williams has revealed that Hatton’s ?preference’ is to fight Filipino Manny Pacquiao. According to Williams, this would for fill Hatton’s needs to ?take on the best’. Pacquiao took over from Mayweather as the world’s leading fighter after the Filipino comprehensively defeated Oscar de la Hoya earlier this month.
This led to the boxing odds favouring Hatton v Pacquiao to be the next big light-welterweight fight. However, despite Pacquiao’s promoter claiming that negotiations are already underway to make the fight happen, Williams has said that there has been ?no contact whatsoever’.
Something that has been confirmed, by Ray Hatton, is that the Hitman’s team has been contacted by a ?third-party’ about the possibility of facing Mayweather again. This is obviously still a long way off, but it is being talked about and that is the first stage. The next thing to happen is for the fans to start expecting the fight to happen, for momentum to build surrounding the fight and for the negotiations to get underway.
As Hatton’s father continued to point out, ?at the moment we’re looking at Manny Pacquiao’. However, should Mayweather Jnr’s interest become more official, Hatton will find it hard to turn down.
