By William Mackay: Ever the modest one, Floyd Mayweather Jr. (39-0, 25 KOs) says that Ricky Hatton was never the same after being stopped by him in the 10th round in a recent interview with Brian Kenny from ESPN. Never mind the fact that Hatton continued to fight effectively for two more fights after the Mayweather fight, beating first Juan Lazcano and then Paulie Malignaggi before being stopped in the 2nd round by Manny Pacquiao on May 2nd at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas.

Although Pacquiao took Hatton out earlier in the fight compared to Mayweather, Floyd explains that inconvenient fact by point out that he used 10 ounce glove for the fight compared to the eight ounce gloves that were used in the Hatton-Pacquiao bout two years later.

Mayweather was quick to defend his father Floyd Mayweather Sr. for the poor performance that Hatton put in against Pacquiao, saying that Hatton didn’t follow the game plan set out by Mayweather Sr. for the Pacquiao bout and that’s why he was defeated.

Mayweather thinks that Hatton was a tough fighter during his career but that he’s reached the point where he should retire from boxing. Mayweather brings up all the hard fights that Hatton has been in, mentioning all the hard shots that Hatton has absorbed as well as his problems with drinking and piling on the pounds in between fights, saying that Hatton should get out of the sport of boxing rather than continuing on at this point.

While Hatton had previously had Mayweather in his sights if he had been able to defeat Pacquiao, Mayweather effectively ruled that out from ever happening by saying that he won’t fight Hatton again regardless of the location.

Mayweather then goes one step further in explaining why he wouldn’t fight Hatton again, remaking that “It would be like picking on a guy that we call gun shot.”

That’s kind of a low blow, because Hatton has only been knocked out twice in his career and in both cases to talented fighters – Mayweather being one and Pacquiao being the other fighter – in the past two years. The way Mayweather tells it, you’d think that Hatton had been knocked out numerous times instead of only twice in his career.

That’s fine if Mayweather doesn’t want to fight Hatton again, because Ricky has a lot of other options besides him to fight. If Hatton can pick up the pieces in his career and get some good wins behind him then he can prove a lot of people wrong, and make fighters like Mayweather sorry for saying that he doesn’t want to fight Hatton again.

Mayweather spent a good portion of the time defending his father about Hatton’s loss, pointing out that he wasn’t to blame for Hatton fighting poorly and not using what was taught to him in training camp. Mayweather failed to acknowledge some of the problems that Hatton had with Floyd Sr., namely him sometimes showing up late for training sessions.

In another direction, Mayweather thinks that Pacquiao can be beat, although Mayweather seemed reluctant to answer questions asked of him by Kenny as to why Mayweather didn’t choose Pacquiao in his first fight back from his two year retirement or why Mayweather chose to fight Juan Manuel Marquez, a fighter two divisions below his welterweight fighting weight, rather than someone like Shane Mosley.