George Groves has spoken about a fight between former world champions Ricky Hatton and Amir Khan.
Hatton is one of the most popular Brits to have ever fought, famously taking huge armies of fans to Las Vegas for his super fights with Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. Although he lost those, his legacy was already assured after beating Kostya Tszyu for the IBF light-welterweight world title.
Khan was never in a dull fight and was one of the youngest ever British professional world champions who had epic nights with the likes of Marcos Maidana, and later moved up the weights to take on stars such as Terence Crawford and Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez before retiring after a loss to Kell Brook in 2022.
Speaking to SportingTalk, former super-middleweight world champion Groves was asked how a fight between the two would have gone and first laid out Khan’s skills.
“Best for best, I can’t see Hatton getting beat. Amir Khan had lightning-fast hands, ridiculously fast hands, very fast feet, and when he first burst onto the scene at 17, winning silver at the Olympics, that style of fighting was perfect for the amateurs, you had to sort of fence in and out. And to his credit, worked really hard to settle in as a pro and had tremendous success.”
He then had plenty of praise for Hatton.
“But Ricky Hatton was like a little pro fighter from the get-go. Amazingly brought on and developed. When he finally broke through fighting Kostya Tszyu and that, he was a real force. He takes a little bit of stick sometimes cause he gets beat and he gets stopped but that Ricky Hatton at that point was very difficult to beat. And of course, Mayweather was incredibly difficult to beat.”
Finally, he predicted a win for ‘The Hitman.’
“I think if those two fought Hatton would be able to chop him down and catch him. The vulnerability of Khan would always be a question mark. I think he could stop him, he just hurt him to the body, he put his shots together so well, so relentless, so clever. He would pressure you with your feet, march you down, head movement. The dod one would go down but once he got into range he put his shots together really well. I think he probably would stop him.”
