By Scott Gilfoid: In looking at recent photos of a well fed looking Ricky Hatton, I have to wonder whether he’ll ever take enough lard to be effective in the ring against anybody. I’m not even thinking about Hatton being good enough to beat a top fighter at this point, because of with that huge coat of fat that Hatton has his body in the past seven months since his 2nd round knockout against Manny Pacquiao, I don’t think Hatton can beat a top fighter any more. Hatton has hinted about making a comeback next year.

I’d like to see that happen just to see what Hatton can still do in boxing, but I don’t have a lot of confidence that Ricky can still make much impact against top fighters of the sport unless they match him carefully against another light hitter like Paulie Malignaggi. Hatton can still probably beat a fighter like that, but he’s going to have to take off some god awful weight. I can only imagine the hard work ahead of Hatton in having to strip of 40 to 60 pounds of pure sludge from his body.

Medically speaking, that can’t be good for you to have that kind of fat on you, and even when you take it off, it has a certain debilitating effect on a body. Have you ever seen a before and after photo of someone who took off a lot of weight? If you have, in most cases they older. It’s hard on a body to take off a lot of weight and I think it ages it. This is why it’s important not to get bloated in the first place.

Hatton seems to reward himself with food and drink after his fights. Don’t know why he does it, but it seems to be the case after every bout. In the case of his last fight, I suppose Hatton was drowning his sorrows in food and drink. I hope it helped him get over the loss, but it certainly didn’t help him any if he plans on fighting again. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. If Hatton wants a money fight against someone like Juan Manuel Marquez, then I think he needs to forget about it and stay retired.

Marquez is too good and will beat Hatton if they fight. What Ricky needs is an easy opponent from the UK or Europe to fight rather than rick getting flattened again. I think his punch resistance is gone and by facing a dangerous opponent like Marquez, Hatton will only end up getting knocked out again and sent into retirement with a loss. I’d like to see Hatton take on someone like Michael Jennings, who would pose little threat to knocking Hatton out.

If Hatton can beat him, then I’d like to see Hatton retire with a fight against Amir Khan. If Hatton could somehow stay in shape in between a fight with Jennings and bout with Khan, he might have a sliver of a chance at beating Khan. I doubt he would, but he’d have a chance if he could stay on his feet long enough to connect with Khan’s glass chin.