By Aaron Klein: In news that will surely sadden most of his fans, Ricky Hatton (44-1, 31 KOs) announced yesterday on his Birthday that he will be fighting only one more years and three fights and then he’ll be retiring from boxing. The three fighters he mentioned, Paulie Malignaggi (his next opponent on November 22nd), either Oscar De La Hoya or Manny Pacquiao, whoever comes out the winner of the battle, or possibly Juan Manuel Marquez. Also, a fighter that looms out there for Hatton is Floyd Mayweather Jr., who Hatton is very interested in fighting a rematch with in order to avenge his 10th round stoppage defeat to him from December 2007.

Except for the Malignaggi fight, which previously was a fight that Hatton was interested in mainly because he wanted to recapture his IBF light welterweight title, the other fights would be intensely appealing to most fans. The fight with Malignaggi, a fighter mostly popular to boxing fans on the East Coast of the United States, now appears to be a big waste of time for Hatton now that Malignaggi’s IBF title will no longer be on the line for the fight. It’s unfortunate that Hatton couldn’t have cancelled that bout altogether once the title was removed from the equation, because Hatton could be instead facing De La Hoya now rather than the defensive-minded Malignaggi, who will probably be a minor headache for Hatton due to his constant movement and defensive style of fighting.

With Hatton retiring in one year, this means that boxing fans will never get a chance to see him fight the best light welterweights in the division like Timothy Bradley, Junior Witter, Andreas Kotelnik, Kendall Holt or Victor Ortiz. I personally don’t consider Malignaggi, who has won two consecutive controversial decisions against Herman Ngoudjo and Lovemore N’dou, as a top five fighter in the light welterweight division. He may have recently held the IBF title, but I don’t think he’s in the class of Bradley, Witter, Kotelnik, Holt or Ortiz. Those are fighters that Hatton should have considered fighting rather than the much less dangerous Malignaggi.

Hatton’s new trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr., is working on re-shaping Hatton’s style of fighting, turning him more into a fighter that uses more defensive skills than he previously used up till now. At 30, it will be interesting to see if any of Mayweather Sr’s teaching take hold with Hatton or if they only end up messing him up, making him more mechanical and less fluid a fighter. Going into his fight with Malignaggi, this is probably the wrong time to try and change the way Hatton fights, because he’s not going to be able to defeat Malignaggi, a good boxer by a weak puncher, if he tries to beat him at his own game.

The same would seem to hold true for a potential match with De La Hoya, who will probably defeat Pacquiao on December 6th and become Hatton’s next opponent in the process, because Hatton won’t stand a chance if he tries to fight at a distance against the much longer armed De La Hoya. If Hatton has any chance at all of defeating De La Hoya, it’s by getting inside and turning it into a war.