By Scott Gilfoid: When is Ricky Hatton going to retire? It’s time already for him to get off the pot and announce his retirement. I hate to break this to all the Brits, but I think it’s time to put Hatton out to pasture. The old guy has had his day, fought a handful of decent opponents and a ton of easy fights to pad his record, but I think it’s time for Hatton to hang up the boxing gloves once and for all. I don’t buy the bit about Hatton having lost his whiskers all of a sudden after the Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao knockout losses.

Hatton never has had a great chin. Look at his fight against Vince Phillips six years ago in 2003 and you’ll notice that Hatton was stunned in that fight by a right hand from Phillips. Hatton has been hurt in many other fights as well. Hatton needs to retire because he’s finally stepping up against good opponents for once in his career and getting royally beaten each time.

Sure, Hatton could hang around and continue to pad his record against easy fighters, but I think Hatton wants to continue to get the big pay checks that he’s received in those fights against Mayweather, Kostya Tszyu and Pacquiao.

Going back to the easy opponents that Hatton has built up most of his record on would probably be unsatisfying for Hatton at this point, because he’ll have to take a huge pay cut and would have to fight almost entirely in England where he would probably continue to make a little bit of money fighting the lower level fighters that he can still beat.

I’d like to see Hatton retire already though, because it’s best for him to get rather than have to go backwards with his career to try and keep winning. I doubt Hatton could handle that. If he continues to fight, there’s plenty of fighters that Hatton should have been fighting a long time ago that are still around, starting with Timothy Bradley, Kendall Holt and Junior Witter.

Hatton owes it to them and to his self to prove that he can beat them. I, of course, think Hatton would be drilled into the canvas by each of them within a round or two, but that’s not something that was brought on by his losses to Mayweather or Pacquiao. Hatton would have most definitely lost to those guys even in his so-called prime.

While we’re on the subject of primes, this IS Hatton’s prime. He’s the same fighter he was in his biggest win of his career over the faded Kostya Tszyu four years ago. Hatton just isn’t fighting older fighters anymore like Tszyu. There’s a big difference between scouting out older fighters like Tszyu and Jose Luis Castillo and younger ones with talent like Bradley & Holt.

I think Hatton and his band of followers were deceived by his wins over fighters like Tszyu, Ben Tackie and Carlos Maussa, forgetting who Hatton was actually fighting against. Had Ricky been bold enough to fight Witter back in 2005 rather than Tszyu, we’d be seeing the same thing as Hatton’s loss to Pacquiao.

He’s the same fighter as then. So, unless Hatton wants to go back to fighting the easy fighters again, he might as well retire right now, because Hatton is going to get destroyed if he fights Bradley, Holt or Victor Ortiz.