IBF light-welterweight champion Ricky Hatton will fight WBA titleholder Carlos Maussa in a unification bout in November, the Briton announced today.
However, the fight may be prevented from going ahead after Hatton's former promoter, Frank Warren, claimed the 26-year-old had broken a contract in order to link up with Dennis Hobson's Fight Academy.
Hatton beat Kostya Tszyu in July to claim the IBF belt and will face 33-year-old Colombian Maussa, who beat American Vivian Harris with a seventh-round knockout to win the WBA title in June, at Sheffield Arena on November 26.
"After such a hard fight against Kostya Tszyu, a lot of people said I was maybe entitled to ease my way back into action, but I want unification matches now and it's the best fight for me," Hatton told a news conference.
Hatton said the threat of legal action by Warren was not the best preparation for the fight.
"It will be a shame if it does go to court. It's not ideal preparation, but it's just making me more determined," he said.
His manager, father Ray, said there was no agreement in place with Hatton's former promoter.
"We don't have a valid agreement with Frank and it's sad that he wants to take us to court," he said.
"We expected Frank to come back with a revised offer after negotiations had faltered. But only a matter of hours after I'd finished speaking to Frank on the phone, we were issued with legal documents.
"We didn't want to go down that road, but we feel now that we need to go to court for certain things to come out."
Hatton said Maussa would be a tough opponent.
"He is a very dangerous puncher with a lot of knockouts on his record. He's very tough and he seems to throw punches from different angles, so he's very tricky because you don't know what's coming from him.
"But the harder the opponent has been, the better I've performed. This is the most important time in my career and I believe the best is yet to come from me."
