By Sean McDaniel: Writer Steve Bunce revealed that when former two division world champion Ricky Hatton attempted to restart his career following a 2nd round knockout loss to Manny Pacquiao in May 2009, Hatton was told to stay retired by those watched him work out.

Bunce said to the Independent.co.uk “I have only ever heard a talent of one fighter ending an exile, looking like garbage in the gym and being told to stay retired – and that was Ricky Hatton a couple of years ago. His family watched him in the gym, moving like his feet were stuck in a treacle, and immediately banned him from fighting.”

In fairness to Hatton, he was badly out of shape when he did start to work out a little, and it’s not surprising he didn’t look good. I’m quite sure that if he hadn’t made a ton of money in his previous fights against Kostya Tszyu, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Pacquiao, to name just a few, Hatton would have pushed through the pain, lost the weight and eventually looked like a million bucks.

He never looked good in his first days of training camp when he was overweight. The difference here was that Hatton was coming off of a bad knockout loss against Pacquaio and he had made a massive amount of money to where he really didn’t need to take any more risks. A normal fighter unfortunately wouldn’t be able to just stop fighting like that.

They would need to keep fighting just to survive and believe they would get back in to shape and likely do well. I don’t believe Hatton was shot after the Pacquiao loss. Physically, he could have taken the weight off had he really wanted it. But I don’t think the desire was there anymore because he made so much money, and the loss was so hard him mentally.