they give belts out to anyone these days....world champion is a very subjective word.... especially with 8 belts per division and yes, that includes the interim garbage
In fact, Senchenko traces his lineage back to an interim bauble. Yuri Nuzhnenko attained the interim WBA title beating Euro champ (and decidedly Euro-level) Fred Klose, and defended it once against Irving Garcia by technical majority decision before losing it to Senchenko in a very close match. Senchenko never defeated a reigning holder of a non-interim belt. As for the clown-car that produces his mandatory challengers until Malignaggi... :-( The likes of Avendando, Sasaki, and Navarro weren't really top fifty welterweights except in the eyes of the WBA.
His fight with Senchenko has absolutely nothing to do with how good Hatton was in his prime. The guy completely destroyed his body outside of the ring, let alone having a 3 year layoff and on the back of a one punch KO loss. There is 0 to take away in terms of rating Hatton as a fighter by the Senchenko fight.
:good Ricky Hatton losing to Vyacheslav Senchenko means as much as Tommy Hearns losing to Uriah Grant.
:yep Weighted for home advantage? Without that atmosphere, bored to death by a cold fish Ukrainian audience, he probably would've been stopped in half as long.