Why Should Hatton Quit?

By Matt Stein: Since losing to Manny Pacquiao recently, Ricky Hatton (45-2, 32 KOs) has been given a ton of advice from various former boxers as well as many writers telling him to retire from boxing rather than continue on with his successful career. As of now, Hatton, 30, hasn’t come out and said what he plans to do one way or another, but it might be that he Hatton could fight on for a little while longer at least. My questions are how Hatton can be told to retire when he’s only been beaten twice in his career against high quality fighters each time.

I don’t remember anyone telling this to Oscar De La Hoya after he suffered his 2nd loss of his career in 2000. De La Hoya would go onto fight another nine years after that, winning many of his fights and losing four more times. De La Hoya would later make his biggest money in this period of his career despite losing from time to time.

Shane Mosley suffered his 2nd career loss in 2002, losing back to back fights to Vernon Forrest. Mosley not only didn’t quit, but turned around and won titles in both the welterweight and light middleweight divisions. During this seven year period, Mosley lost an additional three more times.

Bernard Hopkins suffered his 2nd career loss way back in 1993, losing by a 12 round decision to Roy Jones Jr. Hopkins has since won titles in the middleweight and light heavyweight division in the past 16 years, while losing another three more times.

As you can see, losing is part of the sport of boxing. It comes with it and it’s really how a fighter reacts to the loss that shows what they’re made of. I think Hatton is being advised wrongly by the many boxing fans and experts that are telling Hatton to get out of the sport just because he’s been stopped twice.

Sure, losing is hell and it’s not a good thing that Hatton has been stopped twice, but quitting at this point should be the last of Hatton’s options. Instead, Hatton should put his nose back on the grindstone, learn how to defend better and focus in being a champion of his own light welterweight division.

I know Hatton wants the big money fights, but he should stay away from big fights against super talented opposition like Juan Manuel Marquez and Mayweather, and spend more of his energies being the best that he can at his own weight class. I think Hatton got too mixed up on the big money fights without working on developing the skills needed to beat those kinds of fighters.

When it came time for Hatton to fight them, obviously Hatton would be exposed because of the lack of preparation that he had failed to put in all these years. Hatton still has a lot of time left in the sport before I would consider him washed up, but he needs to get a good trainer that he respects and that he can listen so that Hatton can learn the tools he needs to keep on winning.

It’s possible that Hatton can continue to find success with his old style of fighting against the opposition in the light welterweight division, but it couldn’t hurt for Hatton to learn a thing or two about defense and coming up with different fight strategies when things aren’t going good.

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