Richard John Hatton vs. Eisa Al Dah

This is real.

Announced less than an hour ago during this random card in Dubai that I decided at the last minute to watch & do RBR for. Pretty sure I was the first person to break the news globally, with my tweet coming 10-15 minutes before those of the UK Sun and Mirror. Probably because I'm among the handful of people that watched the González vs. Singh stream.

Ricky "The Hitman" Hatton and Eisa "The Arabian Warrior" Al Dah are both 46 years old. The former is 45-3 (32) and last fought in 2012 losing via KO9 to Vyacheslav Senchenko at welterweight. The latter is 8-3 (4) and last fought in 2021 losing via TKO1 to Pedro Alejandro "Yeyo" Delgado Chablé.

YES, this is a sanctioned pro bout and not an exhibition. Weight class TBA.

 

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Additional details mentioned during the announcement:

• There will be a bespoke championship that is being created for the fight, so that Al Dah can say that he a) fought a world champion and b) competed for (his preference would of course be that he win) a belt to put a bow on his legacy as the pioneer of professional boxing in the Gulf region.
• Al Dah's chief second will be Anthony "Chill" Wilson, a member of the Washington DC Boxing Hall of Fame who in his career has worker the corner of 21 world champions including Badou Jack and Anthony Joshua.
• Wilson, born in 1964, is also going to himself be fighting on the undercard, in an exhibition.
• Hatton vs. Al Dah is, again, not an exhibition.

 

It's going to be at middleweight, and the WBC is going to create/sanction a belt for it.

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Remember though, "Ricky Fatton" made a career of blowing up to basically light heavy / cruiser walking around weights between camps and then miraculously, always reliably boiling down to light welter in time for his day on the scales. I'm guessing he's over 200 now based on the way he looks but a 40+ pound boil is old hat for Hatton.