Piers Morgan? Robbie Savage? Who should footballer-turned-boxer Rio Ferdinand face in the ring?

It had a whiff of a publicity stunt about it from the off, and that stench then grew stronger thanks to a betting company backing his every punch. But Rio Ferdinand says his transition into the boxing ring is for real, and his first opponent should be running scared.

The retired former Manchester United and England defender has launched his pro career and says he’s deadly serious about it.

“I’ve won titles and now I’m aiming for a belt,” said the 38-year-old. “I’m doing this because it’s a challenge.”

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Now we could be about to see what Rio’s made of!

Ricky Hatton, the legendary Pride of Hyde, says he will come out of retirement to take on the former Red Devil. Nothing to do with the Hitman being one of Manchester City’s most famous fans, of course.

The former world champion hung up his gloves in 2012 but a fight could be on, but has Ferdinand bitten off more than he can chew?

Here’s a few fights that we would love to see Rio sign up for – for a mixture of reasons!

Ready to rumble: Piers Morgan warms up with a rough and tumble with Eamonn Holmes

Piers Morgan: The only reason we want to see this fight happen is so we can hear about it on Good Morning Britain. Honest. No other reason.

Robbie Savage: See above. But replace ‘Good Morning Britain’ with ‘to read about it in his Daily Mirror column’. Again, the reasons for a beating are purely journalistic, of course.

Curtis Woodhouse: The ex-Sheffield United star would show him how to do the football-turned-boxer thing better than anyone

Anton Ferdinand: Poor Anton, always in his big brother’s shadow. But wait – at six years his junior, now’s the time for the Southend United centre-back to jump up the family pecking order.

Freddie Flintoff: Remember when the cricket great wanted to become a pro-boxer? We’d tried to forget it as well. It was back in 2012, but an ultimate circus match would be good fun.

Jamie Carragher: The pair love twitter sparing, and with Scousers knowing how to handle themselves this one would go the full twelve rounds.

Joe Calzaghe: The Welsh boxing great’s withering assessment of Rio’s “joke” career change as a “shameless stunt” didn’t go down too well. There’s only one way to settle this, gentlemen….

Bayo Akinfenwa: The bench-pressing Beast says he would ‘put Rio to sleep’ in the ring. Not the Piers Morgan talking kind of way, but with his gloves. Fighting talk!