All the cliches about aggressive crowd-pleasing fighters apply to apply to Ricky "The Hitman" Hatton. He leaves it all in the ring, he always gives a 110%. He engaged in a cliche this last Saturday night against 39-year-old Vince Phillips. The two of them met in a "crossroads fight."

Phillips, one-time conqueror of Kostya Tszyu, has not beaten a top fighter in quite some time. His last go against an upper-level 140-pounder was a points loss to Shambra Mitchell.

Still, Shambra is a mobile southpaw, and good enough to give King Kostya all he could handle not all that long ago. Phillips has always done better against fighters who come to him, who give him a chance to counter, to land his big right hand. A loss to slick Shambra is therefore not necessarily an indictment of Phillips' current level as a fighter.

Hatton is a big draw on the other side of the pond for sure. But until he took on Phillips, he had never faced a big name American fighter (unless you count the totally used-up Freddie Pendleton - who was stopped in the second round). The Hitman had however, already been knocked down and staggered against decidedly mediocre opposition.

And so it was that we arrived this last Saturday at the proverbial crossroads. Hatton's youth (he's 24) and energy against Phillips' skill, experience and right handed power. Sure, Hatton was favored to win, but the danger of Phillips upsetting the apple cart was real.

All right, it was illusory.

Hatton swarmed from the opening bell, and Phillips, weak from his struggle to make the 140-pound weight limit, had nothing at all. Hatton won every round - pitched a 12-round shutout. And he had to have made fans out of anyone watching for the first time.

The Hitman fights three minutes of every round, cuts off the ring, and steps over to his opponent's side beautifully to create punching angles once he traps his prey on the ropes. He digs hooks and uppercuts with both hands, and makes up for his lack of power with the overall volume of his punches. But he never moves his head. Ever. His defense consists mostly of smothering his opponent so that they cannot get proper leverage on their counters.

An eventual shot at the top dog of the division, at this moment Kostya, need not be the ultimate goal for team Hatton. Why feed a ticket seller, a legitimate draw, a fan favorite, a guy whose charisma when he is fighting is as undeniable as his charisma when he is talking, why feed that guy to a killer? Why bump him off?

Because make no mistake, Kostya savages Hatton. No - forget building Hatton for Tszyu. Keep him fighting and winning on that side of the pond. Keep him on American television. Everyone will love him. But for goodness sake, keep him away from the big dogs, because they'll eat him alive.

***

So one of those bogus sanctioning bodies is "mandating" that Bernard Hopkins fight Robert Allen for a third time. Allen you might remember, was the last fighter to fight competitively with Hopkins - before losing, of course. They had a rematch, and this time Bernard won every moment of the fight. Allen tried to fake his way to a DQ win, but the ref wasn't biting, and the fight was stopped, with Hopkins declared the knockout winner.

Allen earned and was awarded a deserved rematch after his strong showing against Hopkins the first time around. But in that rematch Allen stunk it out, essentially quit and did nothing to warrant a third meeting. There is absolutely zero interest in the fight from boxing fans.

Yet this joke of an organization will strip Hopkins of their meaningless belt, should he not fight Allen yet again. This is simply the latest example of sanctioning body stupidity. Either stupidity or corruption. The behavior of the three (or four, depending on how you rank them) "major" sanctioning bodies, can only be described as either stupid or corrupt. So I will here ask once again, this is a question to all three (or four) heads of those organizations: are you stupid, or corrupt? It's got to be one or the other.

You want to know who the champions are? They are listed in Ring Magazine. I will reproduce the list here, as I do from time to time:

Heavyweight - Lennox Lewis
Cruiserweight - vacant (leading contender Vasily Jirov)
Light heavyweight - Roy Jones
Super Middleweight - vacant (leading contender Sven Ottke)
Middleweight - Bernard Hopkins
Jr. Middleweight - Oscar De La Hoya
Welterweight - Ricardo Mayorga
Jr. Welterweight - Kostya Tszyu
Lightweight - Floyd Mayweather
Jr. Lightweight - vacant (leading contender Acelino Freitas)
Featherweight - Marco Antonio Barrera
Jr. Featherweight - Paulie Ayala
Bantamweight - vacant (leading contender Rafael Marquez)
Jr. Bantamweight - vacant (leading contender Masamori Tokuyama)
Flyweight - vacant (leading contender Eric Morel)
Jr. Flyweight - Rosendo Alvarez
Strawweight - vacant (leading contender Miguel Barrera)

Max Kellerman is a studio analyst for ESPN2's Friday Night Fights and the host of the show Around The Horn.