by T.K. Stewart
Provided Ricky Hatton can make it by Paulie Malignaggi Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and provided Oscar De La Hoya can turn back the challenge of Manny Pacquiao in the same ring 14 days later, the next big super fight will likely be The Golden Boy vs. The Hitman.
And the location involved could be on one of the world's largest stages - Wembley Stadium in London, England which can seat upwards of 70,000 people for boxing.
All of the players involved are on board for the match and even the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, Richard Schaefer, is now on record as saying it is a fight that he will pursue as long as things go according to plan over the course of the next two weeks.
"I think it would be the biggest fight of all time, from the Wembley Stadium," said Schaefer who is in Las Vegas for this weekend's fight. "And that's what Golden Boy really is about. We want to break records, we want to create mega-events and that certainly would be a huge, huge promotion."
De La Hoya vs. Hatton would match the world's two most marketable boxers in a fight that would probably smash all established pay-per-view records and would likely sell out Wembley Stadium.
Over the course of the past several days, the media scrutiny focusing on both De La Hoya and Hatton has begun to center around what each man will do next year as long as they both prove victorious.
De La Hoya told a group of reporters on a conference call earlier this week that he will continue to fight into next year and that the way training camp is going that he felt it was possible he could make a return to the junior welterweight division.
"I'm even thinking of going back down to 140 after this fight, so we'll see," said De La Hoya.
While that scenario would seem to be highly unlikely, there could be a case where De La Hoya and Hatton meet at a catch weight somewhere between 140 and 147 pounds.
Hatton has experimented twice with the welterweight division and both times he was met with problems as he barely squeaked by Luis Collazo to win the WBA title and was knocked out by Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
Because of those two fights, Hatton has a reluctance to return to the welterweight division and he did turn down the De La Hoya fight earlier this year when Floyd Mayweather, Jr. suddenly retired leaving Oscar without an opponent.
However, Hatton seems to have had a recent change of heart, and when the subject of De La Hoya was broached with him in a conversation earlier this week he was totally up for getting in the ring with Oscar.
"I'm in a wonderful spot, really. All I have to do is get by Malignaggi and it opens up the door to tremendous opportunity for me," said Hatton. "I'm ready and there would be nothing that I would like more than for that fight to happen at home."
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