Ricky Hatton never shared the ring with his biggest rival.
Throughout his career, ‘The Hitman’ had many an intense feud.
Hatton stopped Paulie Malignaggi in a tremendous performance following an extremely heated build-up.
However, despite sharing many a fiery back-and-forth, the Mancunian missed out on going head-to-head with his Sheffield nemesis.
WOW: Ricky Hatton was sent to the canvas for the first time ever three years before biggest victory
Ricky Hatton explains why he didn’t fight Junior Witter
Ricky Hatton vs Junior Witter could’ve been one of the biggest fights in British boxing history, with the pair sharing a palpable dislike of one another.
Sadly, the bout never came to fruition, with ‘The Hitman’ explaining why, from his perspective, they never traded leather.
In an interview from the 2017 Boxing News Annual, he said: “I asked Frank [Warren, his promoter at the time] for it immediately and Frank turned round and said ‘you’re both world class fighters, we’ll build it up into a big fight further down the line and you can fight for big money,’ so that made total sense.
“It was different, though, because I was a ticket-seller, Junior wasn’t. I was boxing at the MEN [now the AO Arena] in front of thousands of people, and Junior wasn’t, and I found myself in the top five in the world.
“With Junior slagging me off as well, which was starting to get on my nerves, I was of the opinion that I was in the top five, so why would I fight Junior Witter when I could fight Sharmba Mitchell, Kostya Tszyu and all these people for big money?
“At the end of the day, I did want to fight him and I did want to beat him, but why would I give him the opportunity and payday when he’s being so disrespectful and I was highly ranked anyway?
“It just lost its way, it’s one of those fights that got away, and it would have been a good one. It made sense what Frank said, and when he built me up, I moved on, and Junior didn’t. We just lost the opportunity.”
Ricky Hatton explains what he could’ve done differently to have defeated Floyd Mayweather
While Hatton never got the opportunity to get his hands on Witter, he did get the chance to punch Floyd Mayweather.
The pair went to war on December 8, 2017, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
Eventually, the American proved too much, stopping the Brit in the tenth round.
Interestingly, Hatton has explained the way he could’ve beaten Mayweather.