Boxing: Ricky Hatton hopes to crown his reinvigorated career in front of 100,000 fans at Wembley with a mouthwatering fight against Oscar De la Hoya. The 'Hitman' dismantled New Yorker Paulie Malignaggi in Las Vegas over the weekend to put himself firmly back in the elite of world boxing after some recent under-par performances.
Defeat to Floyd Mayweather Jnr was followed by an unconvincing win over Juan Lazcano in May and talk ahead of the fight had centred on whether the Mancunian was a spent force.
Now he has proved emphatically that, at 30, he is far from finished, and Hatton has turned his attention to a possible bout with De la Hoya, who takes on Manny Pacquaio at the same MGM Grand venue on December 6th.
"My dream would be to have it at Wembley, without a doubt, and it's a strong possibility," he said. "Oscar's never fought in Britain and he's said he'd like to tick it off on his resume of what he's achieved.
"We got 58,000 at the City of Manchester stadium for Juan Lazcano — if we can't get a 100,000 at Wembley for Oscar De la Hoya, then I'd be very surprised."
Hatton is adamant that despite proving his many critics wrong, he still intends to make good on previous promises to end his career sooner rather than later.
"I don't want to go on for too much longer, as I keep stressing, but retirement is not on my agenda, not on my radar at the moment," he said.
"When you see a performance like that, with everything I had to deal with — 'he's not been the same since Mayweather, he's struggled, he's a little bit past it, he's looking a bit shot' — I've slammed that door shut now."