By Scott Gilfoid: I’m hearing that Ricky Hatton is planning on retiring from boxing. Well, I’m glad he if this is turns out to be true. I don’t want to see Hatton knocked out again, and I have a good feeling Hatton would be knocked out pretty much by anyone he faces at this point in his career. When I saw Hatton getting staggered repeatedly by the light-hitting Juan Lazcano in 2008, I knew his time wasn’t long for the sport.

That told me that Hatton’s chin might have been compromised by his 10th round knockout loss by Floyd Mayweather Jr. And all that weight that Hatton put on probably didn’t help him much either. I once gained a ton of weight, about fifty pounds and I took it all off over a year period. And man I felt weak after I got back down to my old weight. I can’t imagine putting 40 or 50 pounds of pure blubber, and then melting it off in a two or three month training camp and then trying to fight someone.

I guess it’s something you can do with limited success during your youth, but when someone gets up there in age in their late 20s and early 30s, I think the party’s over. And Hatton has been putting on and taking off weight for a long time now. His boxing fans think it’s no big deal for him to take off the weight and fight, but I think they’re dead wrong.

It’s probably been hurting Hatton for a long time. He might have got away with it because of his natural ability and talent, but I think it caught up to him in his fights with Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. I don’t know if Hatton could have beaten those guys if he was taking care of his body and not putting on that kind of massive weight, but I think he’d have done a lot better against them without having put on weight.

I also think that Hatton wouldn’t have been knocked out by Pacquiao if he wasn’t ballooning up in weight.
I don’t know that Hatton will stay retired. He’ll probably get bored like a lot of boxers do sitting on his couch day after day, and see some easy mark and figure he’ll be able to make a comeback. I think it would be a mistake, because, like I said I think Hatton will probably get knocked out by anyone at this point, but think he’ll probably come back at some point if he does retire right now.

It’s too bad though. I think Hatton owes it to himself to stay around long enough to fight Amir Khan. That’s a fight that I think Hatton can actually win. Khan won’t be sitting on his punches, so Hatton would have an excellent chance of sticking around long enough to land a halfway decent punch that would end things. Hatton probably could stop Khan with a glancing blow. It would be a great fight.

Even if Hatton gets stopped himself, it would still be an interesting fight. He could then have his little brother Matthew Hatton avenge his defeat by knocking out Khan in the next fight. I think it would be huge in the UK.