Guardian.co.uk
In the deep heart of winter, with little to write about in the way of actual ring activity, boxing ticks over with rumours – and this has been a vintage January for scuttlebutt and speculation.
The latest conjecture comes from Amir Khan, who tells heraldscotland.com: "I would hate to get to the end of my career and look back at it and not have had the chance to fight Ricky Hatton. I still think Ricky has a bit left in him and I think he also has something he wants to prove to himself after the defeat by Manny Pacquiao."
Against my few better instincts, I can see that happening, mainly because Ricky has encouraged the speculation himself. Watching the big-time shenanigans in America the past month will have done little to ease "the itch" he keeps going on about.
But he's a businessman now, with his own promotional company, and looks every inch the fight-game fat cat, stretching the buttons on his three-piece suit all the way as he sits ringside at his own shows. I wish him all the best.
Khan has to get past the Argentinian knockout artist Marcos Maidana first in a mandatory defence of his light-welter title before he contemplates Hatton.
But, you know what, eight months ago, Khan and Hatton were adamant they would never fight each other. Before he left for Vegas to fight Pacquiao in May, Hatton told me: "Amir Khan is a good friend of mine, but, no, I can't see me fighting him."
Khan went to Vegas to watch Hatton fight and said: "It will never happen. Ricky's my friend. I would rather be in his corner supporting him than across the ring from him."
After Hatton was knocked out, Khan was even more convinced it was a bad idea. But after he knocked out Dmitriy Salita in a round last month, he said he'd now like to fight Ricky. "Business is business," as he put it.
There is more revisionism in boxing than Joe Stalin ever managed in Russia 70 years ago. Believe nothing until you see one guy smiling and the other guy flat on his back.
ARUM-SPEAK
Of course the great revisionist of our time is Bob TWY ("that was yesterday") Arum. While he and Golden Boy Promotions were indulging themselves in the tortuous ego-war over the putative fight between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr, Arum must have issued at least four "the fight is off" ultimatums.
I wonder if the 78-year-old promoter knows there is a poisonous species of flower called Arum maculatum, which variously goes by the name of Wild Arum and Bobbins. "Bobbins", by the way, is Manchester slang for rubbish. Tenuous, granted – but it is January.
For a grown-up, Wild Arum throws a lot of tantrums. Uncle Bob is smiling now, though. The deal for Pacquiao to fight Joshua Clottey in Texas was said to be "98 per cent" done at the weekend and Arum reckons he can drag 50,000 punters into the Cowboy Stadium in Dallas on 13 March.
For Clottey's sake, I hope so. The tough, clever Ghanaian is an honest warrior who should have beaten Miguel Cotto and deserves any good pay day that comes his way. He's certainly more willing to share a ring with Pacquiao than Mayweather is.
While we're on the rumour treadmill, a Las Vegas source tells me: "The word in town is Floyd doesn't want the fight because he's not ready. He's got bad hands and he just doesn't feel right at the moment." That's as sound as any theory I've heard this month.
Teddy Atlas, meanwhile, thinks Clottey is a tougher fight for Pacquiao than Yuri Foreman, the other alternative Arum mentioned, and I agree. Foreman, although heavier at light-middle, can't punch. Pacquiao would walk through him.
By the way, Clottey and Foreman fight for Arum. How cosy is that in these cold, hard times?
As well as better instincts, I also have gambling ones – and I wouldn't yet rule out Pacquiao fighting Mayweather in the autumn, or even in May. It has got to happen, simply because there is $200m on the table. Also, I'm sure Mayweather regrets pushing the little guy so hard in talks over the past weeks: now he's got a lawsuit by Manny to deal with.
Mayweather, who needs money like most people need air, has fewer big-cash options than Pacman. Paulie Malignaggi? Wake me up when it's over. Shane Mosley? Sugar has more reject letters from Floyd than your average bad poet gets from his publisher.
Speaking of correspondence, Atlas, usually well-informed, reckons Pacquiao's people sent Mayweather's people an email in recent weeks enquiring what would happen if Manny took a drugs test and failed it.
It is a story that also turned up in the New York Post recently. But think about it: under what circumstances would Pacquiao even hint he was on drugs – especially to the Mayweathers?
I think someone set you up there, Teddy.
A PROMOTER'S TAKE
Frank Warren, who ought to know, claims in his latest Sun column: "There is a strong rumour one British fighter – and his trainer – have been taking it."
"It" is human growth hormone, the drug de jour, according to the Mayweathers and all the other conspiracy theorists gathered on boxing's grassy knoll.
Frank also claims: "I hear 31 May has been pencilled in for Ricky Hatton's comeback."
Interesting. That's a Monday.
RING THE BELL
Michael Owen had four bouts as a junior – at the prompting of his father, who wanted to "toughen him up". And Wayne Rooney would have made a good boxer, according to his uncle, Richie, who runs Croxteth Amateur Boxing Club, as would his brother, Graham [who, on thin evidence, once claimed to have beaten Khan as a schoolboy].
Like a lot of footballers, Owen and Rooney appreciate the benefits of a tough time in the ring. It sharpens up any athlete mentally and it does their footwork and balance no harm either.
The latest to join the fight club are two cricketers, Ian Bell and Brad Haddin. Bell, who looks like he has been lifted from a kid's cartoon but obviously has discovered his inner steel, says sparring gave him renewed focus – and it has paid a dividend for England in the last two Tests against South Africa.
Haddin, who kept brilliantly for Australia against Pakistan at the SCG last week, trains in the one-time working- class Sydney suburb of Five Dock at a place called the Thump Gym, which is fairly unambiguous.
He came home early from the Ashes series last summer with an injured finger and figured something wasn't quite right. So he traded keepers' gloves for boxing mitts.
"As much as it was disappointing to be on the outer through injury," he tells the Sydney Morning Herald, "missing that three months gave me the rare opportunity to get my body back into shape."
If Haddin takes a catch to win the Ashes back for Australia later this year, blame it on boxing. It gets the rap for everything else.
Source: guardian.co.uk
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