By Sean McDaniel: In article by former WBA/WBC/WBO super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (46-0, 32 KO’s) at the Southwalesargus, Calzaghe says “I would have liked to have seen Ricky [Hatton] retire.” Calzaghe points out that former International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion Ricky Hatton has been in some tough fights and mentions his lifestyle. Hatton has a tendency to eat and drink a lot between fights, causing his weight to balloon up high to the point where Hatton has to take off a great deal of weight during his training camps.

Calzaghe, talking about Hatton’s wars, says “That takes a toll on anyone and with money not being an issue, I think maybe the time has come to call it a day.” Calzaghe has a point about the money issue. With Hatton being fabulously rich after making millions of dollars in mega fights with Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, he doesn’t need the money anymore like normal boxers do, and that has to have a partial effect on his motivation to want to train hard and continue fighting.

Beyond that, there are not a lot of huge money options for Hatton besides bouts against Mayweather and Pacquiao. Hatton will still make good money no matter who he fights, but it’s got to be tough to get motivated for a fight against an opponent that you know won’t make nearly the same kind of money that he made in his two biggest fights of his career against Mayweather and Pacquiao.

Calzaghe says “Ricky isn’t old, by any means, he’s only 32 [Hatton is 31] I believe and as I retired considerably later than that, I can’t go preaching that he should give it up.” Calzaghe did stick around a lot longer than Hatton, fighting until he was 36. However, Calzaghe didn’t have two huge mega fights against the likes of Mayweather and Pacquiao, either.

It would have been interesting to see if Calzaghe would have stuck around the sport if he had made the big money at 31 like Hatton. When Calzaghe was 31, he was facing the likes of Tocker Pudwill, Charles Brewer and Byron Mitchell. All are good fighters, but hardly the type that would have brought Calzaghe a big payday.

“I do agree with Ricky that only a fighter knows when it is time to go – something I knew after the Roy Jones fight,” Calzaghe says. Hatton has been saying that he doesn’t want to listen to armchair critics who see him as a shot fighter based on his 2nd round knockout loss to Pacquiao in May of last year. Hatton says that he had a poor training camp before the Pacquiao fight and that he went into the fight having been over-trained.

“If Ricky is lining up someone like Juan Manuel Marquez as reported, he could be fine,” Calzaghe says. “Marquez is a lightweight and though he’s a great fighter, he’s not really a big puncher.” In other words, Hatton needs to stay away from big punchers. I think Calzaghe is wrong about this. I think Marquez can punch hard enough to cause problems for Hatton if Ricky tries to slug with him like I think he will.

Marquez didn’t do much against Mayweather in his lopsided 12 round decision loss to him in September, but then again Mayweather stayed on the outside all night long fighting cautiously. Hatton won’t fight that way against Marquez, and will likely be taking the fight to him and trying to slug with him on the inside.

Marquez has a good uppercut, and if Hatton is there to be hit, he can stop him. However, I don’t think that Hatton will be fighting Marquez, though. It looks as if Hatton wants to go after one of the light welterweight champions next, possibly taking on the winner of the unification bout between WBC light welterweight champion Devon Alexander and IBF champion Juan Urango.