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With the recent news that Ricky Hatton has re-upped his boxing license and that Floyd Mayweather, Jr. needs an opponent you could easily be led to believe that perhaps we could see a rematch between "Money" and "The Hitman".
In the grand ballroom that is big time professional boxing, there are only a handful of fighters that can routinely garner multi-million dollar paydays. Aside from the double-headed heavyweight monster known as the Klitschkos, only Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Manny Pacquiao, Ricky Hatton, Shane Mosley and perhaps Miguel Cotto breathe the rarified air of enormous wealth and prosperity.
As a result, they don't fight just anyone. It's why in the past few years Mayweather has faced De La Hoya, Hatton and Mosley. Pacquiao has faced Hatton, De La Hoya and Cotto. Mosley and Cotto squared off against one another. See the trend?
The long and the short of it is that except for "one-offs" with Pacquiao against Joshua Clottey, Mayweather against Juan Manuel Marquez and Cotto versus Yuri Foreman - the ones that reside in the big boy mansions possess all of the cards. So when it comes time to lace up the gloves and seek out new money-making opportunities, the elite fighters don't stray far outside their own socio-economic circle.
With Floyd Mayweather's potential opponents being limited in nature, it would make sense that he and Ricky Hatton, whom he vanquished in 10 rounds a couple years back, could find their way back in the squared circle together.
Hatton has repeatedly indicated that only a rematch against Mayweather would be enough to bring him back to the sport. That defeat was his first and it's the one fight that he would like to do over if he ever had the chance.
I rung a close confidant of Hatton's over the weekend. Speaking off the record and requesting anonymity, this person confirmed that only "Money" Mayweather could rekindle the spark and bring Hatton back from his self-imposed exile.
"That's the one fight Ricky would like to get back," said the insider. "He truly believes that with a different referee and a break here and there that the night against Floyd could have turned out much differently than it did."
The fight, however, were it to happen, is in need of a hook.
"Well, I think some thought has gone into that one," said the person on the other end of the telephone. "We could sell 50,000 tickets here in England. Wembley, City of Manchester Stadium…promoted properly this one sells that many tickets. Worldwide the pay-per-view could do three million. Where else are either Ricky or Floyd going to go and who else could they fight to make that type of money? Floyd, I don't think, wants to fight Pacquiao. He believes he can beat Ricky because he's done it once. So for Floyd the money is there, it's a new challenge and environment if the fight takes place here in England. Then there's the whole thing with Floyd, Sr. that would boast up the promotion. Floyd, he calculates risk versus reward. A second bout with Ricky would make all sense to him because it makes dollars."
The barriers to completing the bout would not be daunting as both fighters are virtual free agents in charge of their own promotional en******. As a result, both could guarantee themselves an even larger piece of the pie by cutting out the promoter/middleman.
"Look around from ten to eleven stone. Who is there for Mayweather?" asked the source. "Bob Arum is not going to let him fight Cotto or Margarito or Chavez, Jr. Floyd's already beaten Mosley. De La Hoya is retired. Floyd'll never fight Andre Berto or Paul Williams because they are both Al Haymon fighters, too. He had his chance to fight Manny. No way that he fights Sergio Martinez, Timmy Bradley or a young unknown contender. That leaves our boy Ricky if you asked me."
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