Boxing Betting / Ralph Ellis / 04 September 2008 / Leave a comment

Rick Hatton is out of shape and approaching his thirtieth birthday. So can his new trainer bring him to his peak? asks Ralph Ellis.

You wouldn´t want to fall out with Ricky Hatton, but I think I´m about to. The only good news is that at least he is clearly not a man to bear a grudge.

How else do you explain his decision to appoint Floyd Mayweather Senior as his new trainer? This is the man who trash talked the brave Brit before the fight in December which ended Hatton´s dream of taking over the label as the world´s best pound for pound fighter. Floyd Senior helped his son Floyd Junior get ready for their fight by rubbishing the Hitman and branding the bout "a joke fight".

Well he´s clearly going to help Hatton get serious now before he meets Paulie Malignaggi in Las Vegas on November 22, and many would argue that´s not before time.

Hatton´s world has been in a spin since that defeat in December. His homecoming fight against Mexican Juan Lazcano was meant to make him look good, and instead left him battered. Since then he´s split with his long time trainer Billy Graham, and seems to have been on yet another bender. His occasional appearances on TV have shown him massively overweight, and to get from there back into fighting shape will be a huge task. There are those who consider that his performance against Floyd Junior was not helped by his tendency to binge out in between fights.

As many sportsmen have discovered to their cost throughout the years, it´s one thing to be able to chuck vast amounts of alcohol and junk food into your body and still perform when you are in your early 20s. It´s another matter entirely when your thirtieth birthday is coming up fast (it´s on October 6). As an example, just look at the change in Andrew Flintoff since the Pedalo incident forced him to confront his lifestyle. The fact he´s been fit and firing for England this summer has been due as much to the fact he´s drinking and eating like a sportsman as to the other work he´s done on his fitness.

Hatton is in no doubt of the importance of the fight coming up. "The Malignaggi fight is make or break," he tells The Sun this morning. "I´m convinced this will be the best training camp I´ve had." It will have to be. Hatton is [1.34] and [1.64] to lay in the early phase on the market for this fight, and at the moment I´d be more inclined to lay that.

He has 11 weeks to completely transform his shape and get into the right weight and mindset. A new trainer might help the process, but you have to fear whether Hatton has already made it impossible for anybody to bring him to his peak.

Five things you might not know about the Paulie Malignaggi fight

1. Malignaggi, the IBF junior welterweight champion, was born in Brooklyn but raised in Sicily until he was six years old and then returned to America
2. He didn´t start boxing until the age of 16, taken to a New York gym by his uncle as he was getting in trouble because his parents had split up
3. Malignaggi is an unorthodox boxer, keeping his right hand at chest level and exposing his head - but he has terrific handspeed
4. He made his professional debut at the age of 20, and won his first fight against Thadeus Parker with a first round knockout
5. In his last defence against Lovemore N´Dou he was wearing hair extensions - and his trainer cut them off in his corner in between rounds eight and nine