Recently former light welterweight king Ricky Hatton confirmed that he has been offered a fight with Mexican ring legend Erik Morales, hot on the heels of the latter’s age defying performance against Marcos Maidana several weeks ago.
The offer as reported by ESPN was $4 million, not a small sum by any stretch of the imagination, and since retiring following a 2009 loss to Manny Pacquiao, Hatton has often remarked that he might once again step into the ring eventually.
Thus far Hatton’s camp have ruled out the possibility of an immediate showdown with Morales, but are apparently still considering a ring return. Possibly a tune up in the summer followed by a bout with Morales later in the year.
Hatton’s father recently stated in an interview with The Sun that Ricky will be applying for his fighter’s license again, regardless of whether or not he decides to fight again.
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The main reason for Hatton’s indecision regarding his retirement?
Hatton’s feeling that he didn’t give a worthy performance of himself against Manny Pacquiao, which he blames in large part to the disastrous pairing he made in appointing Floyd Mayweather Sr as his trainer before the bout.
For the sake of his legacy though, Hatton is undoubtedly better off staying retired.
His last loss against Manny Pacquiao in 2009 was a one sided blowout, and clearly he showed in that fight that bad training camp aside his punch resistance just wasn’t there any more.
His current record of 45-2 includes losses only to Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao, unarguably the two greatest fighters of the generation.
Whatever else people might say about Hatton, his only two losses have come at the hands of fighters there is no shame in losing to.
Most importantly Hatton needs neither the money or the dangers that come from fighters stepping back into the ring long after they should be retired. Advertisement
He now has his promotional business to keep him occupied, as well as helping steer the career of younger brother Matthew.
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The proposed bout is also something of a puzzling one for Morales since he has made it clear in the past that his aim in returning to the ring was to capture a world title in his fourth weight class, making him the first Mexican fighter to achieve the feat.
Fighting Hatton would get him no closer to his goal given that Hatton is now unranked by all four major sanctioning bodies and that all four titles are already held by active fighters.
Thankfully Hatton seems to know that his best days are well behind him and judging from previous form likely won’t take the fight.
Morales isn’t the first to offer Hatton big money bouts to return.
Since his retirement all of the four current light welterweight champions including countryman Amir Khan have expressed interest in fighting him at one point or another, as has lightweight kingpin Juan Manuel Marquez, Morales’ recent conqueror Marcos Maidana and even the likes of Dmitri Salita and Joan Guzman.
In the past he has always turned the bouts down for one reason or another, and in the end was always better off for it.
On more than one occasion Hatton has even begun training only to find that he no longer has the desire to keep up the punishing schedule that he used to put himself through.
Eager to erase the shame of ending his career face down after a bad loss and with this much money on the table however, and a return might be hard to resist.
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