One last shot for the Hitman!

So it's official, Ricky Hatton is to make a return to the squared circle. Most pundits and punters seem to be voicing concern over the Hitman's comeback, and perhaps rightly so. In his last two fights the Manchunian fighter was knocked unconscious by Manny Pacquiao having already succumbed to the great Floyd Mayweather. It seemed as though his promoting/training career was going well (although he had just lost the support of Sky Sports) and he was recovering well from drink and drug issues. So why is he back? What more does he have to prove?

The simple answer is; that after Money Mayweather and Pacman Pacquiao there is no one out there in the Light Welterweight/Welterweight world that will worry him, especially the men who’ll be his main British rivals Kell Brook and Amir Khan. Brook was pushed all the way by a mediocre American last time out and Khan was flattened by an equally one dimensional slugger. The plan will no doubt be to have a tune up fight before going on to face Khan in the New Year, or Brook if the King gets beheaded again.

I understand why many don't want to see Hatton return. Friends don't want to see him get hurt, his fans don't want their great memories of him tainted, and rival promoters are worried about how much money he'll take away from their shows. But surely the only person who matters in the making of a decision is the man himself. He's been through everything the sport has to offer, the crushing lows, the dizzying highs, and the drug assisted comedowns from those highs, and yet he still wants another shot. Hatton has never done anything the easy way. His fighting style meant that every top level fight he participated in was a toe to toe slug fest. Therefore we should have known that Ricky wasn't simply going to skulk off into the night and settle on a career behind the scenes.

Hopefully his comeback will be a success and won't end in a sad 'I told you so' from his detractors. There is, though, another issue that should be mentioned. Ricky Hatton gave his word to a number of bright young British prospects that he would train, mentor, and promote them. I sincerely hope that the Hitman can still deliver on those promises, if he doesn't and his fighters begin to desert him then what will he have left when his fighting career truly does come to an end?

If done right this comeback could be a great thing for boxing, its fans, and Hatton himself. I just worry that if his house comes tumbling down around him, for the second time, that the drink and drugs could return to haunt him worse than ever before. The team around him need to be planning for both eventualities and make sure that Britain's favourite fighting son has solid ground under him if he falls this time, and not the gaping void he was presented with last time out.

Sky is the limit for David Haye

Hull city win, my own football team finish top of the table, Man Utd lose, Andy Murray won in Valencia, and then just when I thought this weekend couldn't get any better, David Haye somehow beat the 7'2 tall 23 stone heavy Nikolai Valuev to become Britain's first Heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis.

Living in Vienna I watched the fight on terrestrial TV in a Pub. Therefore the commentary was inaudible. However when the referee stepped between the hairy Goliath and the flashy David it seemed to be clear as day who had won the fight. I counted on one hand the number of times Haye was hit, in contrast to the larger amounts of accurate shots that Valuev had to take. Any doubts were then totally put to rest when Valuev did his leaning 'Tower of Pisa' impression in the last round after Haye connected with a so called 'Hayemaker'.

I had actually thought along with other sports pundits that Haye would come up short against Valuev, and that his brittle chin would be his downfall. Haye wonderfully surprised me and I partied hard, safe in the knowledge that I would be reading glowing headlines the next day praising Haye's display. How disappointed I was then to go online the next day and listen to what British fans had had to listen to on Sky Box Office. All the commentators had Haye losing the fight on their scorecards and had been berating the champion for not being more aggressive throughout the fight.

Nicky Piper, Glenn McCrory, Johnny Nelson, and Jim Watt should hang their heads. They had all fallen for Hayes pre fight hype. Haye had said he was going to knock Valuev out in spectacular style, but this was all just fight selling talk. Every other boxing observer outside the Sky studios believed Haye would adopt a hit and run tactic and that he would try to out point the Giant Valuev, and out point him he did. How they all came to the conclusion that Haye was behind is beyond me.

Sky Sports coverage of boxing is usually very tinted. Fighters who are screened on Sky are often over hyped by pundits (such as the ones mentioned) almost to the point where you could be forgiven for thinking that they had been given lines to read by their producers. Haye was universally slated by Sky pundits before the Maccarinelli fight (Maccarinelli had been a Sky sports regular and Haye hadn't) then he signs a deal to fight Valuev on Sky and all of a sudden those same Pundits are waxing lyrical about him. It gets worse as well. Frank Warren (Boxing Promoter) has a deal with Sky whereby they exclusively show all his fight shows. I don't think I have heard a truly negative comment about one of his fighters from the Sky pundit panel. Amir Khan is the biggest joke of all. He is a world champion on the back of Sky's backing but were he to be put in the ring with any of the best men in his weight division he would be knocked out cold. Yet still the Sky panel insist that he is best thing since sliced bread. I wonder how fast their views would change were Khan to switch promoters and television networks.

My advise to those people that are new to watching boxing is not to listen too much to pundits and so called boxing experts as they usually all have an ulterior motive. Frank Warren for example has already come out and said that Valuev was one of the worst Heavyweights in history. However he failed to mention that 'Hayemaker Promotions' (owned by David Haye) is one of Warrens main promotional competitors.

What boxing fans should do if they want to hear impartial content is to find a web site or paper that holds little or no connection to the sport. The BBC (where boxers are more likely to be seen flitting around a dance floor than a ring) is usually a good place to start. Failing this there is always the ultimate source of impartial and entertaining sports opinion here at Nickssportrant.

You can take it from me 1. David Haye won his fight fair and square 2. He is the most exciting boxer in the Heavyweight division 3. You shouldn't listen to Sky Sports Boxing Pundits as had they been judging the fight the WBA heavyweight champion would still eat half a deer for breakfast, scare children, and need an industrial sized full body wax!

Free to view or not to view? that is the question.

Lets face it, with the England Football team already qualified for the World Cup and very little else happening in the world of sport, this week has been a bit of a write off for Nickssportrant. Of course other nations were involved in meaningful World Cup qualification campaigns but when you don't hail from those countries its just difficult to get excited about a team that's not your own. Whilst I was sitting in the pub, watching the Irish worry a lacklustre Italian team, I wondered to myself why I was not watching England? It is not often that an England supporter can sit back, hands behind his or her head, and relax safe in the knowledge that he or she can celebrate whatever the outcome of a Qualification game may be.

Surely this is no way to build momentum before the World Cup. For the first time in a long long while this England team look dedicated to the cause and play with a real sense of purpose and drive. So what better way to eradicate the aura surrounding the team than to leave them stranded in the Ukraine with only a handful of hardcore fans able to watch via a dodgy Internet site or illegally streamed Turkish TV. Finally we have a team to be proud of and then the public isn't able to watch them play.

The Official England fan club was equally annoyed at the decision to only screen the match online and suggested that a rule should be made whereby the rights to International fixtures could only be sold to free to view television companies. There aren't really any true free to air channels any more. BBC has its license fee and sky and the rest of course all cost money. The issue is instead that rights to matches should not be allowed to be sold to Internet only channels. Firstly their picture quality is poor, secondly their coverage is poor, thirdly they restrict how many people can view the match in question. Only 1 million people were able to watch online (only 500 thousand did 200 thousand of whom were the armed forces who got it free) due to picture quality issues stemming from too many people using the live feed.

Maybe once Internet technology is up to scratch this will be the way forward in the future, but for now the FA should do more to insist that matches are screened on TV.

This is an isolated situation brought about by Setanta going bust, Football fans have little to worry about when it comes to watching the sport they love. Other sports though are really feeling the pinch of the recession and its effect on TV stations unwillingness to screen costly sporting events.

I am a great fan of boxing and am finding it increasingly difficult to watch all the fights I want to. The latest is Carl Froch's first fight in the 'Super 6 Boxing Tournament'. Froch will be fighting in front of 10,000 people on Saturday and yet the only place that will be showing the fight is little known and difficult to access satellite channel 'PrimeTime'. I'm sure that other sports must be suffering as well.

Sports fans must just hope that channels are saving their money for the World Cup next summer and that after this we can once again be spoiled with easily accessible and good to watch coverage of the sports we love. Channels also need to do a little more to support sports that could well become increasingly popular after the 2012 Olympics. Boxing is one of these. Surely a little investment now would pay off once the Olympics have come around.