By Sean McDaniel: After weeks of silence on the matter of retirement former International Boxing Federation light welterweight/WBA welterweight champion Ricky Hatton (45-2, 32 KO’s) has come out and quashed the idea of him retiring at this time from boxing. Hatton, 31, had this to say from the Manchester Evening News: There has been a lot of hearsay in recent weeks regarding my retirement, but I urge my loyal fans to ignore the speculation. If, and when, I do eventually retire, the announcement will be made by myself. I feel I have earned the right to do it myself.” What Hatton doesn’t say is why he waited so long to speak about the rumors.

Hatton could have spoke up immediately to set the record straight rather than waiting until weeks later to speak about the retirement talk. However, it’s better late than never to find out from Hatton that he’ll continue fight. In May, Hatton will have been out of the ring for a year, and unless he starts taking of weight soon the chances of him having a successful comeback will likely drop the longer he stays out of the ring.

It will be of interest to see who Hatton does end up fighting when/if he does make an eventual comeback. It would seem doubtful that he’ll be able to beat a top fighter if he stays away from the ring for much longer. Hatton is a pressure fighter who has excelled because of a combination of conditioning and pressure. He’s not a huge puncher by any means. The light welterweight, if that’s where plans on fighting at, has gotten better in the past year and it’s unclear what kind of success Hatton would have if he chooses to fight one of the top fighters at that weight class.

Hatton would be better off taking on a smaller and older fighter like Juan Manuel Marquez rather staging a comeback against a young lion in the light welterweight division like Timothy Bradley, Devon Alexander, Amir Khan, Victor or Marcos Maidana. However, if Hatton is going to go after one of those fighters, he needs to fight Khan and ignore the rest of them.

A fight against Khan would be a good paying bout in the UK, and it might interest fans from the United States as well. Hatton would likely have a better chance beating the shaky chinned Khan compared to fighters like Alexander, Bradley, Ortiz and Maidana.

Hatton says “I was also interested to read that I had recently asked Freddie Roach to train me but that he turned me down. I wish to put the record straight that, while I have the utmost respect for Roach, I have never once asked him, or indeed considered him, to train me.” Roach said recently that Hatton had asked him last year if he would train him, but Roach turned him down, saying that he should retire. It seemed like an odd choice for Hatton to ask Roach given that Hatton had been stopped by one of his fighters Manny Pacquiao in May.