By Scott Gilfoid: After a fine early career with wins over a faded Vince Phillips and Kostya Tszyu, as well as many other moderately good fighters, maybe Ricky Hatton (44-1, 31 KOs) has proven all that he needs to prove and should consider retiring from boxing.
Like Joe Calzaghe, he can rightly claim that he has no other real challenges in the sport and that he would be wasting his time by facing fine junior welterweights like Timothy Bradley, Junior Witter, Andreas Kotelnik or Joan Guzman.
After all, Hatton looked great in his last fight against Juan Lazcano and in his 10th round stoppage loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. With these impressive showing behind him, why fight on when you know that Witter, Bradley, Guzman and Kotelnik, to name just a few good fighters in the division, wouldn’t be able to hang with you?
Isn’t it better then to hand up the gloves like Calzaghe and claim that there’s no one out there for you to fight? Never mind the fact that Calzaghe is coming off a fight with a faded 39-year-old Roy Jones Jr., whom he claimed that a victory over would complete his legacy, even though there was lingering out there a fighter (Chad Dawson) that many boxing experts felt was a much bigger threat than Jones.
The heck with them, go with your opinions and ignore whatever others are saying. If Jones is still the greatest fighter in the light heavyweight division, who are we to argue? The same holds true for Hatton. Why does he need fighters like Bradley, Kotelnik, Witter, Guzman, and Kendall Holt when he had such fine opponents like the feather-fisted Malignaggi to fight for good money?
Who needs those guys when you have Malignaggi, who probably would destroy all of them in a handful of rounds, right? Heck, Bradley wouldn’t stand a chance with Malignaggi, so why bother fighting him? After all, if Bradley can’t beat Malignaggi, what use is it to fight him? At 30, Hatton has proved all that he needs to prove, and beaten Tszyu, Phillips and Luis Collazo, so who else out there, besides Malignaggi, in the light welterweight division is a threat to him?
It’s all so dull, so why not retire after fighting Malignaggi. Of course, retirement isn’t needed right away, not when there’s still super featherweight Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya out there for potential big money fights. However, beyond them, what does Hatton have to prove in boxing?
He’s done it all, beaten all there is to beat, so we should just let him retire without asking why he’s fighting Malignaggi rather than Witter or Bradley. Hatton could probably also beat all the welterweights as well, including Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto, so why even bother fighting them when it’s clear that he has nothing else to prove in boxing. I mean, he did beat Tszyu and Phillips, so why bother fighting on?
Comments are closed.