RICKY HATTON vs PAULIE MALIGNAGGI

More than the usual number of intangibles hover over Saturday night’s junior welterweight title fight between Ricky Hatton and Paulie Malignaggi. Most of them concern Hatton.

Hatton’s rapid weight gains and the hearty drinking between fights have been well chronicled. Will this be the fight in which years of undisciplined living finally catch up with him?

There is a possibility that Hatton might have peaked, and, even worse, actually started to go downhill as a fighter. He didn’t look too impressive at all in his last fight when he was wobbled twice on his way to a unanimous decision win over a dead-game but faded Juan Lazcano.

On Saturday, Hatton will have a new face and a new voice in the corner. This will be Hatton’s first fight without his long-time trainer, Billy Graham. Hatton brought Floyd Mayweather Sr. on board for this fight, and he says that he has had great preparation, is in wonderful condition and has picked up some new things. He says his boxing will be smarter, the moves more measured. This could be so, but Hatton and Graham were together so long, went through so much together, that one wonders if the change will truly be for the better. If things start going awry against Malignaggi, will Hatton miss the familiar, perhaps comforting, counsel of the trainer who was with him from the start?

These are things we cannot know until the fight gets under way.

Hatton’s parting of the ways with Graham was obviously difficult for both men. Hatton has been saying in effect that Graham had become worn out. Graham has taken the high road, telling the U.K. media: “We've spent half our lives together and we’ve changed each other's lives. It’s a fantastic story and I’m not going to ruin it by bad-mouthing him.”

Graham has turned up in Las Vegas, a haunting presence if not exactly in the manner of Banquo’s Ghost. The ousted trainer just wants to be on the scene even if he can no longer be on the main stage. Will this play on Hatton’s mind, even if just a little?

Then, of course, Hatton will be stepping back into the same ring in which he suffered his only defeat, ending up on his back in the 10th round against Floyd Mayweather Jr. How ironic that he has his conqueror’s estranged father in his corner for the return to Las Vegas.

This fight has almost a Shakespearean plot.

Then we come to Malignaggi. The flashy Brooklyn-Italian is boxing for the first time since breaking his right hand for the third time in a fight, when he outpointed Lovemore Ndou in their rematch in May. Will this make him hesitant to throw the right hand on Saturday?

Also, if Hatton laboured to win his last fight, it could be said that Malignaggi struggled in his last two bouts — the hard-earned wins over Herman Ngoudjo and Ndou. Has Malignaggi, at 27, lost something? One wonders, because the spark he showed when easily beating Ndou in the first meeting in June 2007 was missing in his 2008 performances — even allowing for the ridiculous hair extensions and the hand problem he was very unimpressive in the encore with Ndou and barely won.

Doubts and uncertainties, then, surround Saturday’s fight, but soon all will be revealed.

Hatton, who defends the IBO title, is by no means a big favourite in the betting and I think that most people in the business see this as a risky fight for him. He is, though, the more experienced of the two fighters, stronger physically, and I think he might surprise Malignaggi with his quickness. The British fighter doesn’t just steam straight ahead. He is quite adept at attacking from the sides, hooking with both hands: sometimes he switches almost to a southpaw stance to rip right hands to the body.

Malignaggi has a lovely left jab, one of the best in boxing, but he might need more than this to keep Hatton off him. Hatton was getting stopped in his tracks and pulled up short by Money Mayweather last December, but he was meeting the world’s best fighter, a master technician who was also a welterweight sharpshooter with the power to hurt. At that, Hatton was competitive even though he was falling behind on points. I don’t think he will face the same sort of problems in taking the fight to Malignaggi — there won’t be the same sort of punches, as hard or as varied, coming at him on the way in.

Although Malignaggi is fast and clever, I believe he will be facing a more intense type of pressure than he faced in the fights with Ngoudjo and Ndou. These were tough fighters but predictable. Hatton is more artful in his aggression.

Hatton can jab quite well, too, and he will be punching with both hands: Malignaggi tends to use the right hand sparingly, a situation unlikely to change after the latest injury.

Malignaggi’s smart moves could have Hatton looking a bit clumsy at times, and the early rounds might well be difficult for the boxer from Manchester. Hatton is nothing if not tenacious, though, and I believe that he will eventually start catching up with Malignaggi, breaking through here and there, badgering him at every turn and eventually coming on full-bore to wrest control of the contest from the New Yorker.

Malignaggi showed his heart and chin in going the full 12 rounds with Miguel Cotto, so I doubt very much if Hatton will be able to stop him, but I do see Hatton, with his fast-paced pressure (and perhaps some nice little technical touches courtesy of Floyd Mayweather Sr.) winning the fight by a clear margin on points.