By Scott Gilfoid: If I read another story about how Hatton is still crying over his loss to Manny Pacquiao, I’m going to physically ill. If a 2nd round knockout loss to Pacquiao is so earth shattering to Hatton, then maybe he doesn’t belong in the sport of boxing after all. There are tons of other fighters out there that get knocked out all the time and they don’t quit or start bawling their eyes out over the defeat.

What they do is stand tall, except the defeat, learn from it, and move on. What is it with these British fighters? Do they all want to quit when things get tough?

Sitting there dwelling on a bad experience like a knockout is for losers, believe me. In all the years that I studied Karate and boxed, my instructors would have kicked my backside if I sat there feeling sorry for myself, complaining about being embarrassed and what not. Losing is part of the sport, and if it causes a fighter like Hatton to consider retirement or embarrassment then he needs to reexamine his thinking process.

Trying and failing is part of boxing, and it’s not something to be ashamed of. Even if Hatton got torn apart by Pacquiao, that doesn’t take away from his accomplishments or dissolve who he is as a fighter. Pacquiao isn’t a perfect.

Look at the guy, he’s been beaten three times (four if you count the second fight with Juan Manuel Marquez), yet Pacquiao keeps fighting even though he’s far from a perfect fighter.

Instead of sitting around feeling sorry for himself and wondering what people are thinking about him, Hatton needs to go through the fight, figure out what went wrong and why, and take what he can from the defeat. There’s a lot that Hatton didn’t do right in the bout, starting with his lack of defense.

Hatton needs to outline all the things that went wrong in this fight, listing them item by item and then prepare himself to make sure that they never happen again. I think Hatton could help himself out if he fixes his issues with his trainer. If he really likes this assistant trainer Lee Beard, then make him the head trainer.

I don’t know if it’s the smartest move given Beard’s lack of experience, but Hatton needs to sort out that mess and come up with one trainer that he’s comfortable with.

I’m not a Hatton fan, but it gets me when I see a fighter reduced to tears, giving up on themselves and contemplating retirement just because they lost a couple of times. I could understand it if Hatton was getting mauled by someone like Paulie Malignaggi or one of the other light welterweight contenders, but that’s not what happened here.

Hatton lost to a good fighter in Pacquiao, and that’s not the kind of loss that should make Hatton contemplate retirement. Face the facts: Hatton went out fighting like an ape, and got brained by Pacquiao a few times. Heck, it would have happened to anyone if they had fought in the same primitive style that Hatton did.

You got to learn. Hatton needed to go over the fight in his head before getting in the ring, and have his moves planned out, coming up with different strategies for different scenarios. Instead it seemed like Hatton just blindly bum rushed Pacquiao like an amateur and got walloped a few times.

Pacquiao was giving Hatton a lesson, and I don’t mean that in a negative sense. Pacquiao was teaching Hatton that he can’t fight like that against him, and it was up to Hatton to figure out the correct way to approach Manny.

Obviously, Hatton didn’t do that, and kept doing the same thing over and over again until he was blasted out by Pacquiao. But for me, if I had been the one that was knocked out, I sure as heck wouldn’t be thinking retirement. First of all, I wouldn’t care one bit about what the public’s perceptions were of me.

I’d be going over the loss and seeing what went wrong. After that, I’d get back in the gym and work on a different fight strategy for my next bout, and I’d make sure I sparred a lot against fighters to test out what I’ve learned.

Hatton needs to see the big picture, because he’s like focusing too much on how his image has been torn apart in the minds of boxing fans. It isn’t about them. It’s about learning and moving on.