By Sean McDaniel: Former International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion Ricky Hatton (45-2, 32 KO’s) doesn’t think he’ll be returning to boxing but he still refuses to come out with the ‘R’ word and officially retire. In an article y the Telegraph.co.uk, Hatton says “You can never say never, but if I was to put my last pound on it I wold say ‘No, I think that’s me done.’ I’ve been retired, if that’s what you want to call it, for 16 months. I announced I was going to make a comeback and I came back off holiday and went into a training camp for three or four weeks, but it just wasn’t the same.”

It doesn’t get easier for a fighter the longer they stay out of the game. In Hatton’s case, it’s even harder because of the huge amount of tonnage that he’s put on his small 5’7″ frame. For fighter tat small to put on 200 lbs, that’s like a 6 foot fighter ballooning up to 300. It’s an incredible amount of weight that would need to be taken off and I can see how hard it would be coming to a training camp for three weeks and having to lug around all that extra weight. To take off that kind of weight, Hatton would need to work slowly over a years’ time, watch what he eats and above all stay away from alcohol.

It’s been 16 months since Hatton last fought, losing by a 2nd round knockout to Manny Pacquiao in May 2009. Hatton’s weight has hovered around 200 pounds. Given that Hatton’s fighting weight was 140 during most of his career, it would mean that Hatton would have to burn off near 60 pounds of pure blubber. He might be able to do that but what would be left would likely be a fighter not strong enough to compete against quality fighters.

If Hatton could get back in shape, he could probably still beat a number of good fighters in the division. Maybe not Timothy Bradley, but possibly Amir Khan, Marcos Maidana and Devon Alexander. Those would be the fighters that Hatton should focus on if he were to come back. But he would likely shoot for a big money rematch against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and would basically no chance of winning that fight. It would be interesting if the fight were to take place in the UK with a British referee but in the U.S, Hatton probably wouldn’t be allowed to fight his inside game without being disrupted by the referee.

45 (KO 32) + lost 2 (KO 2)