By Dan Ambrose: Thirty years old is considered old age for most smaller fighters in the sport of boxing. In the case of Ricky Hatton (44-1, 31 KOs), it may signal a fighter that is long ago ready for his rocking chair. He hasn’t helped his case with his binge eating and drinking in between fights, a practice that has caused him frequently to put on an enormous amount of fat that he’s subsequently been forced to take off while training for fights.

Recently, Hatton stated that he plans on fighting three more times, once against Paulie Malignaggi in November, another against the winner of Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao, and a third possibly against Floyd Mayweather Jr., if Floyd decides to end his retirement and come back.

With that said, Hatton also mentioned that he would retire from boxing if he were to lose his next fight against Malignaggi, which would wipe out any hopes for huge mega fights against De La Hoya, Pacquiao or Mayweather Jr. It’s unclear why Hatton would be foolish enough to draw a line in the mud by saying he’d retire, because his fight against Malignaggi may turn to be just as difficult as his bout with Mayweather Jr. Hatton has looked essentially like crap for the past couple of years, with his only one good showing against Jose Luis Castillo, whom he beat by a 4th round TKO in June 2007. Other than that, Hatton has looked like utter garbage against Mayweather, Luis Collazao, Juan Urango and in particular against Juan Lazcano, in Hatton’s last fight.

Hatton was stunned in the Lazcano fight on a couple of occasions, and may very well have been knocked once again if not for a shoelace time out seconds after getting hurt again by Laxano in the 8th round. Malignaggi may not be a big puncher like some of the fighters that Hatton has faced, but he’s a level above all but Mayweather in terms of boxing skills. This is something that Hatton doesn’t seem to realize for some reason.

While I’m quite certain Hatton could knock Malignaggi out if the American star were just to stand in front of him and not move a muscle and let Hatton pound away on him like he does against most of his opponents. Malignaggi won’t do that. He likes to move and fights very much like Roy Jones Jr. and Mayweather, moving often and taking a great pleasure in making his opponents miss their shots.

So given that Malignaggi is probably a much better fighter than Hatton can ever hope to be, regardless of who’s training Hatton, be it Floyd Mayweather Sr. or Graham, will Hatton still retire if he gets a boxing lesson by Malignaggi and loses to him in November? I’d be wiling to bet that Hatton doesn’t retire and that he goes ahead with his next fights like nothing much happened, although his pride will be severely wounded of course. There’s simply too much money on the table for him to walk away should he be beaten by Malignaggi.

The public would probably be none the wiser if Hatton can make a sufficient excuse for losing to Malignaggi, something along the lines of ‘I broke my hand in the second round and couldn’t use it with any kind of power for the remainder of the fight.’ That one always works. It reminds me of the excuses that sprinters would give they’d get blown out in a 100 or 200 meter race. It would always be, “Man, I pulled a hamstring and couldn’t turn on my speed.”