Manny Pacquiao has officially thrown his hat into the Ricky Hatton sweepstakes. The winner of this Saturday's bout between Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya is the likely next opponent for Hatton in 2009. Pacquiao, a serious underdog, is moving up by two weight divisions to fight De La Hoya at the welterweight limit of 147. In his latest ESPN training blog, Pacquiao said he was inspired by Hatton's recent win over Paulie Malignaggi and plans to move down to junior welterweight to hunt down a Hatton fight.
"I was really inspired by watching Ricky Hatton win his fight against Paulie Malignaggi on Saturday. It was a good fight and I would like to fight Ricky Hatton. After my fight with Oscar, I will go back down to 140, which is Hatton's weight, so maybe that fight can happen," Pacquiao said.
Pacquiao has only fought once at the lightweight limit of 135, but continues to say that size will not be an issue when he faces De La Hoya, a former middleweight champion who took much harder punches from big men like Bernard Hopkins and Felix Sturm.
"People have talked a lot about the fact that De La Hoya is bigger than me, that I began my career at 106 pounds, that he has fought at 160. But I was very young, 16 years old, when I started my professional career, and I have been continuing to grow ever since. I'm not that small. I'm 149, 150 right now and I have some time to come down to 147," Pacquiao said.
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