By Sean McDaniel: EBU welterweight champion Matthew Hatton thinks his brother Ricky Hatton can come to terms with his loss to Manny Pacquiao and have a good retirement as long as he can forget the defeat and move on with his life. Ricky has been unhappy since being crushed by Pacquiao a year ago in a 2nd round TKO loss in May 2009. Despite Ricky Hatton having been stopped previously by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2007, the loss to Pacquiao seems to have effected Hatton much more for some reason. Perhaps it’s because it happened so early in the fight and didn’t enable Ricky to even be competitive for an instant. The knockout left Hatton out cold for three minutes, and that also had to be a humiliating experience for Hatton.

Matthew Hatton, speaking to the Manchester Evening News, said “He was very upset after the Pacquiao fight and never came to terms with it. Now he is doing that and hopefully starting a better period of life. Part of me wanted him to fight again because I know what it is like to be a fighter and the pride you have. I wanted him to fight again so he could end his career on better night. It would help ease the pain. I’m pretty sure now that he’s not going to fight again and he doesn’t need to because he’s had a fantastic career…As long as he can put the Pacquiao defeat behind him without fighting again, I am sure he can enjoy his retirement.” I don’t think Ricky has been putting the Pacquiao loss behind him, contrary to what Matthew is saying. For goodness sake, Hatton was just put in a drug clinic to get cleaned out because of the problems stemming from the loss to Pacquiao. That tells me Ricky still isn’t letting it go. Hopefully, Hatton has talked to someone in the clinic and figured out the larger picture of what all this means.

Boxing is such a small part of life. It would be a pity if Hatton can’t forget the defeat and move on. Everyone gets beaten. Look Pacquiao. He fought Juan Manuel Marquez twice, and many people feel that Marquez should have won both fights. You notice that Pacquiao hasn’t been interested in fighting Marquez for a third time? Even Pacquiao isn’t immune to this. Hatton would have really helped himself if he had trained and taken on someone else after the loss to Pacquiao. Maybe Hatton didn’t want to do it because it wouldn’t be Pacquiao he was facing, and I can understand that. Beating someone else wouldn’t make people forget the loss to Pacquiao, and Hatton obviously would be thinking about it. Under the best situation, he would have learned what he did wrong from the defeat, come back and beaten few good fighters and then gotten a rematch with Pacquiao to try and do a better job. This is what Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera did after losing to Pacquiao. They still lost to him again, but it didn’t mess them up mentally. They took the loss in stride. This is what should do.