By Mark Vester

Floyd Mayweather Jr. has advised Ricky Hatton to "think long and hard before you step back into the ring.” Mayweather won't tell Hatton what to do but he doesn't want to see him get hurt. Mayweather knocked Hatton out in ten rounds in December 2007. Hatton was demolished by Manny Pacquiao last April in two rounds. He recently announced a ring return for the summer. In recent photos, Hatton looks very overweight and well above his fighting weight of 140-pounds.

“Ricky is a great fighter and a great warrior. He has done so much for boxing and he took his defeat by me like a man. He is talking about coming back and, of course, he has every right to do that. What I would say, though, is that it gets harder when you get into your 30s to get into shape," Mayweather tells Daily Express.

“This is a young man’s game. He will have to train a lot harder to get back into the shape he was and he has got to ask himself a lot of questions. He has to think long and hard before he steps back to boxing. Every fighter has a right to earn a living and he is entitled to do whatever he wants.

If Hatton really wants to make a legit return, Mayweather has advised him to give up the partying lifestyle filled with long nights of drinking, eating junk food and not staying in the gym on a regular basis. 

“I can’t tell him what to do. What I would say, though, is that boxing is tough and rough and you have to be in it 100%, otherwise you have to get out. All fighters need a break to get their batteries going again and he is no different. Maybe the rest will do him the world of good . What I do know, is this is a hard enough sport when you are young. It is so much harder to get in shape and stay in shape when you are older,” Mayweather said.

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