By Jim Dower: As I was watching former light welterweight champion Ricky Hatton (44-1, 31 KOs) absorb tremendous punishment in 8th and 10th rounds by the light-hitting Juan Lazcano, who hurt Hatton badly in both rounds, it finally dawned on me that Hatton, perhaps, can no longer take a big shot at this stage of his career. Some people are of the opinion that Hatton’s chin was damaged earlier in his career, possibly in his bout with the hard hitting Vince Phillips, who Hatton defeated in April 2003 in a fight that Phillips stunned Hatton on a couple of occasions with big hand shots.

Other people, however, look to Hatton’s fight with Floyd Mayweather, in December, in which Mayweather nailed Hatton with a short left hook while backing away, sending Hatton to the canvas like a wounded duck. Hatton would eventually take several more punishing blows before sinking a final time to the canvas in utter defeat. Whether it be the Mayweather fight, Phillips or one of his many others in which Hatton has taken tremendous punishment, one thing is clear: his chin appears to gone. I saw it coming years before, seeing how Hatton had a dreadful style of walking face first into pretty much anything his opponents would throw at him. Back then, facing mostly handpicked opponents with little power or skill, Hatton could get away with having lousy defensive skills, because his opponents didn’t have the kind of power to make him pay.

When he did finally step it up against a good fighter – Kostya Tszyu – Hatton was able to make his way through the fight with a combination of wrestling, and other rough inside fighting which gradually wore out the aged Tszyu, who probably had no business fighting competitively at this stage of his faded career. Even then, with a faded fighter like Tszyu, Hatton took a ton of flush right hands to the head, some of them quite sickening to watch. Afterwards, I remember thinking to myself, ‘enjoy your 15 minutes of fame, Hatton, because it won’t last long.’

At the time, I had no idea how right I would end up being, for here we are now seeing the what appears to be the beginning of the death throes of Hatton’s once promising career. Now, instead of facing the best in the light welterweight division and expecting to win handily, Hatton appears to maneuver around the cream of the crop, avoiding the top light welterweights like Junior Witter, Timothy Bradley, Ricardo Torres and Andreas Kotelnik. Instead of facing these fighters, Hatton angles for the easy fight, against the soft-hitting Malignaggi, who doesn’t have the power to test Hatton’s now less than sturdy chin. Rather than seeing a future in which Hatton takes on fighters like this, we, the fans, only have to look forward to seeing Hatton pummeled around the ring by Mayweather again.

Beyond that, I expect Hatton to quickly vacate his title, should he beat Paulie Malignaggi, whom he’ll most likely be fighting in 2009. Hatton will likely never defend the title, because the type of contenders his crown – Juan Urango and Herman Ngoudjo, to name just a few – have too much power for Hatton to deal with now. I think what we’re likely to see from Hatton after the Malignaggi bout is fights against Mayweather, which he’ll lose, and then fights against smaller fighters like Manny Pacquiao, Michael Katsidis or Nate Campbell.

The really sad thing is, I see all of them stopping Hatton, who will probably end his career with a string of consecutive knockout losses. Honestly, Hatton needs to retire now. He doesn’t have the chin for fighting anymore and by staying in the game he’s only risking more permanent harm for himself.