Is Hatton finished?

By Chris Williams: There’s no question that Ricky Hatton will in all likelihood be making a comeback at some point in time or another, but I wonder just how effective Hatton will be in the ring when he does finally decide to come back. Hatton looks mighty fat to me in the recent video and photos. Besides his fatness, Hatton is starting to look not exactly young.

I showed a recent video and photo of him to a female friend of mine and asked her to guess his age. Without even blinking, she said 40. I asked her if she was serious and she said “Yes, he looks like an old man, and not an attractive one at that.” Forgetting the comment on his looks, I found myself agreeing with her about how aged Hatton was beginning to look.

I then took a look at a few photos of Hatton from a year earlier and the change in Hatton is pretty dramatic. He looks like he’s aged 10 years in the past year alone. I don’t know if that’s because he’s been drinking a lot, or stuffing his mouth with pies and other assorted goodies.

But whatever it is, Hatton is starting to look like an old man. The way he looks now, I would never guess that he was ever a boxer in his life. And to think that he can come back from this and still compete at a high level seems almost impossible to me.

I think Hatton will fight someone, but I see it as a case of either Hatton finds someone very beatable for him to look good against or else he goes into a bout against a top talent and gets sparked out in the first six rounds. More and more, I think that is going to be Hatton’s destiny when he finally does get back in the ring.

Here’s the thing: If Hatton waits long enough, while he wrestles back and forth about coming back, Hatton will probably get knocked out even by the softest of handpicked opponents. After all, Hatton’s whole thing was centered around him going to war with his opponents, taking their biggest shots and then firing back with his own. He was the classic definition of a throwback fighter, who stood out oddly in this day and age.

Hatton’s style meant, as many boxing experts point out, that he wasn’t made to last long in the sport. Hatton didn’t help himself any by eating and drinking anything he wanted in between fights and ballooning up in weight like a prize winning hog at a state farm. The eating and drinking probably contributed in part to Hatton being knocked out by Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, but it may have been just Hatton’s time.

Hatton never really was a dominating fighter even in his prime. He had to struggle against even older fighters like Vince Phillips and Ben Tackie in his prime and it wasn’t easy for him to get wins unless he was fighting opponents that were really bad, like in 2001 and 2002, a time when Hatton was knocking out a long string of no named fighters in the 2nd round.

So if Hatton does come back, will he be effective in any real way or will he be the equivalent of heavyweight Gerry Cooney when came back following a three year retirement and was promptly taken out in the 2nd round by 41-year-old George Foreman.

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