Barrera, Morales, Frietas, Castillo, Corrales, Gatti...... 2007 has retired more fighters than Michael Vick. There are some young guys fighting on HBO this Saturday. Diaz vs. Diaz (No Relation). Lots of punches will be thrown. Earlier in the year everyone was talking about how MMA was going to retire Boxing.

 Boxing, indeed, has a ton of problems. Still, it´s been a great year, and it´s only getting better. The fight of the year, Mosley vs. Cotto, is still to come, and I am of course looking forward to Hatton vs. Mayweather in December. Unfortunately the Hatton fight is something of a farce. Mayweather came out of ´retirement' to fight Hatton because Hatton 'disrespected' him. Or so he says with every other breath. And in every OTHER breath he says he took the fight because it was the biggest payday out there (Mayweather has requested that his nickname be changed from 'pretty boy' to 'money'. Seriously. I´ve seen him on Dancing with stars where he is neither Money nor Pretty). Anyone with any perspective knows that Hatton talks less trash than anyone else in the fight game. Hatton has quipped that Floyd is a boring fighter, but only recently, after a steady stream of blather from Floyd, commented that Floyd´s partner in Dancing with the Stars will probably have to do all the leading (Floyd has fought in a decidedly negative fashion lately, back peddling constantly and throwing crisp but isolated counter combination). Contrast that with the smack coming out of virtually any other boxer´s mouth, or contrast that with Floyd's own "Vicky Fatton" jibes, and you realize that Floyd´s 'he disrespected me ' explanation for his 'return' to the sport is brazenly dishonest. That he expects us to buy it, is simply offensive.

Yes, Hatton represents the biggest payday for Floyd, but Floyd could have made similar money fighting against any of the fighters in his own Welterweight division. Mosley, Cotto, Williams, Margarito, or Cintron all would have been huge. I am not a Boxing history buff, but I wager that no division has ever been deeper than Floyd´s. But instead of fighting one of these guys, who better approximate Floyd´s own natural fighting weight, he has decided to fight the much smaller Ricky Hatton. Now, Ricky is no slouch, he is dominate in the Jr Welterweight division just seven pounds south, but he looked decidely average when he moved up in weight to fight the talented Collazo, who later got owned by Mosley, who is fighting the undefeated Cotto in November. Mayweather vs. the winner of THAT fight, is a fight that everyone wants to see. That´s a fight that will truly secure Floyd´s legacy as a Pound For Pound giant.

Maybe that fight will still happen. There is a good chance it will, but then again, why should we be asked to have faith that the meaningful fights will come, when there are already rumblings of an Oscar vs. Floyd rematch. Floyd vs. Hatton is not completely meaningless, but really only one thing can happen: Hatton wins. Oh, he is likely to lose the fight and his undefeated record, but he is so much smaller, and so obviously weaker at Welterweight, that his reputation will remain unscathed. In short, the fight only matters if Hatton wins, which is an outcome that Floyd clearly hasn't considered. Which is why he is on Dancing with the Stars, which is we must all watch it and we must hope he comes in dead-second every week. Humiliated, but unable to quit, like the second Karate Kid.

Fights like Floyd vs. Hatton are to be applauded when both men have dominated their own divisions, NOT when so many issues remain unresolved. Roberto Duran´s step-up in weight to fight Sugar Ray Leonard is the obvious comparison (A fight Duran won. Their rematch ended with Duran famous "no mas" forfeiture). That fight made sense because Sugar had already fought the best in his division, and Leonard had dominated the lower divisions like like no one else before or since. Floyd hasn´t fought the best at Welterweight, and he didn´t fight the best at Jr. Welterweight, yet he brandishes those belts as if they mean something. Had he dropped down to jr. welterweight to fight Hatton this article would be singing his praises.

While Hatton gets credit for taking this fight, he doesn´t get out of this scott free: Win or lose, Ricky is looking to fight De La Hoya after Mayweather, in a retirement fight that will probably have the largest attendance of any fight since since Tyson, but otherwise will mean NOTHING. Ricky should instead fight the number one contender in his own weight class, either Malignaggi or Witter. This would solidify his legacy at Jr. Welterweight, and bolster the division that made him famous. No, that fight would not be as popular, but it represents an investment into the sport of boxing. A flashy but meaningless fights against Oscar amounts to little more than cashing in.

Floyd vs. Hatton, and Hatton vs. Oscar aren´t bad fights. But in this day of age when the sport itself is against the ropes, and marque boxers only fight twice a year, every marque fight should mean something, no matter who wins. Scheduling fights based on their popularity, at a time when Boxing´s popularity is historically low, seems logical, but is ultimately a dead end strategy. Half the time the wrong guy wins, and much of the time they do nothing to develop meaningful followup contests. Oscar vs. Mayweather hurt boxing because the wrong guy won. So it goes with pure popularity based match-ups. The popular fights need to be made, true, but that well will dry up if popular fighters aren´t also made. That which makes a fighter popular is the same as what makes any contestant popular, being the best. By divorcing the term ´champion´ from any real qualifications, boxing has found itself in a similar pericament as American Soccer, one that is not traceable to the mechanics of sport itself and is not salvageable by the popularity of David Beckham. The problem is a lack of meaningful contests.

When World Cup rolls around, everybody watches because win or lose the Americans are fighting the best competition. American football is our most popular sport because each game is crucial. Meaningful fights draw a audience, and result in fighters that people can get behind. This simple rule should be especially easy to follow in boxing since boxing is secretly everyone´s favorite sport. As Max Kellerman pointed out: If you are walking down the street and come to an intersection where on one corner there are two people playing tennis, on the other they are playing soccer, on the other two teams are playing football, and on the last corner two people are fighting, which contest are you going to watch?