‘The Battle of Britain’: Is a plan coming together?

Columns, Top Story

British boxing had a Spring to forget last year. First, Joe Calzaghe confirmed his retirement. Then, Ricky Hatton was overwhelmed by Manny Pacquiao in just two rounds. With its two biggest stars seemingly gone, it seemed that a golden era of box office success in the United Kingdom was about to come to a close. However, we’re only a few weeks into a new year and it appears that 2010 could be the biggest year in the history of British boxing.

On Wednesday, Ricky Hatton confirmed that he’ll be making a comeback. This ends a period of public deliberation as Hatton has being talking for months about feeling the itch to return to boxing. He had spoken about wanting to fight in front of his devoted home fans one more time and for his career to end on a more positive note than his brutal KO defeat against Manny Pacquiao last May. Having previously announced that he would be weighing his options over Christmas, the announcement last week that he would return came as a surprise to absolutely nobody. His opponent is yet to be confirmed but he said that he will be fighting against either a top-ranked fighter or a world champion.

One of the world champions that Hatton could be interested in facing is his friend and countryman Amir Khan. When it became apparent that Hatton was considering a comeback, both the Hatton and Khan camps said that Manchester’s formerly dominant light welterweight champion could face Bolton’s rising star in an all-British fight for Khan’s WBA light welterweight championship. This was a reversal on both fighters’ previous insistence that due to their friendship they would not be interested in squaring off in the ring. It also seemed unlikely that Khan’s promoter Frank Warren would be willing to do business with Hatton after their acrimonious falling out when Hatton left the promoter.

Funny enough, on Sunday it was announced that Amir Khan had left Frank Warren to sign with Golden Boy Promotions. Like Ricky Hatton coming out of retirement, this was an announcement that surprised absolutely nobody. For all his success in Britain, Warren has always struggled to compete with the big American promotions and often seems overly cautious about having his fighters fight in America. This caution clashed with Khan’s growing desire to devote more of his time to developing his profile among American fans, a desire based both on developing his career and escaping the critical and at times bigoted response he had received from some British boxing fans. The tensions were shown live on pay-per-view after Khan’s 72 second victory over Dmitriy Saltia. Khan and Freddie Roach were talking about conquering the world while Warren was keen to stress the need for Khan to continue to fight in the UK. After that it was only a matter of time before Khan would make the move to an American promoter who could help him realize his ambitions to be a world-renowned and celebrated fighter. By moving to Golden Boy he now has such as promoter and as luck would have it, Golden Boy has a good relationship with Ricky Hatton.

For Khan, a fight with Hatton gives him a chance to beat the biggest name in British boxing in what could be a ‘passing of the torch’ moment. Ironically, Hatton himself hinted at this possibility when he said that he wanted to go out like Kostya Tszyu “in an absolute war of a fight, a wonderful fight with great sportsmanship”. Of course that great fight was the moment that Hatton announced himself as the world’s dominant light welterweight by stopping the legendary Australian. To defeat the man that dominated the light welterweight division for four years would certainly add luster and credibility to Khan’s record at light welterweight. While there’s a danger that defeating Hatton would only hurt Khan’s popularity in Britain, in reality a dominant win in an exciting fight against the biggest name in British boxing would help his marketability in Britain. For his long-term future that’s important, as his success in America will be based in part on the willingness of British fight fans to pay for fights that start at 4am local time and travel halfway around the world to watch him live.

As for Hatton, while a hard-headed analysis of his situation would recommend he stay in retirement and focus on developing Hatton Promotions, a fight against Khan gives him the grandest possible stage to have his last fight. And for both fighters, Khan vs. Hatton is the biggest money match that is currently on the cards.

When he announced his comeback, Ricky Hatton said that he will not be fighting until towards the end of the summer as he has to first lose the excess weight he has put on during his time away from the ring before he can even start his training camp. That fits right into Khan’s schedule as he will be facing mandatory challenger Marcos René Maidana in late March/early April. Another British world champion who will be making a mandatory defense is WBA Heavyweight Champion David Haye, who will be facing John Ruiz in April. This will be his first defense since grabbing headlines for his antics in the lead-up to the fight with Nikolai Valuev, where he pulled of the upset win to become Britain’s first heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis. The fight was a big success on pay-per-view, with well over half a million people buying it. And while his defense against Ruiz lacks the intrigue of ‘David vs. Golaith’, it should still do well at the box office thanks to Haye’s high profile and charisma.

Also fighting in April is former Olympic Gold Medalist Audley Harrison who (somehow) has earned a shot at the European Heavyweight Champion Albert Sosnowski after winning October’s Prizefighter heavyweight tournament. Its hard not to see this as part of a strategy to rebuild Harrison and get him to the point where he can challenge David Haye for the Heavyweight Title. Harrison-Haye has been mentioned as a possible money match ever since Harrison returned to the ring in 2008. Its marketability has only increased with Haye’s recent success. What it lacks in sporting credibility it makes up for in box office potential with the fight having a (to borrow a pro-wrestling phrase) natural face/heel dynamic and both fighters being good talkers who know how to sell a fight.

Should both emerge from their April fights as champions, Haye-Harrison would be the obvious summer blockbuster heavyweight title fight with the likely winner Haye then in a strengthened bargaining position for the negotiations for a unification match with one of the Klitschko brothers. And should Khan get past Maidana and Hatton succeed in crash dieting, then the pieces would have fallen into place for a summer dominated by two ‘Battle of Britain’ fights.

The spectacle of an all-British contest for a world title would capture the attention of sports fans across the country like no contest since the days of Bruno-Lewis and Eubank-Benn. But if both fights were to happen, then with the timelines all in sync and the major players all being friendly (Haye is a good friend of Khan and Hatton) the stage could be set for the biggest British boxing event of all time with an all-British championship doubleheader as the centerpiece of the first-ever boxing event at the new Wembley Stadium.

A Comics Nexus original, Will Cooling has written about comics since 2004 despite the best efforts of the industry to kill his love of the medium. He now spends much of his time over at Inside Fights where he gets to see muscle-bound men beat each up without retcons and summer crossovers.