He eventually fought his way into a world title fight himself when he took on Saul Alvarez, who takes on Floyd Mayweather next saturday for the then vacant WBC Light Middleweight title.

It was a weight class above his comfort zone as a Welterweight but the man from Manchester came out of the fight with Alvarez with his head held high after he managed to take the Mexican the full 12 round distance back in 2011.

The other high point of his career was claiming the European Welterweight championship in 2010 when he outboxed Gianluca Brancoto take a decision win. He defended the title twice before vacating to allow himself the opportunity to face Alvarez for the World title.

After his defeat to Alvarez, Hatton hoped to work his way back to another world title shot and did pick up another win before meeting Sheffield's Kell Brook in a fight that Hatton was beaten comfortably in, again on points.

He once again returned to the ring with the hope of chasing that world title fight and scored a quick win over Prizefighter winner Michael Lomax. He then went on to face South Africa's Chris Van Heerden in March this year but was comfortably beaten and has now decided to call time on his career.

Hatton told Sky Sports: "The one thing that I always wanted out of my career was the chance to say that I was a world champion. After the loss to Van Heerden, I thought about retiring straightaway because I genuinely believe that I should have been able to beat a fighter of that standard.

"That's not me being disrespectful to Chris because he is a good fighter but I just think to be at the level I believed I could be at, I had to be beating fighters of Chris' calibre."

He then went on to say: "When you've got kids, you begin to realise what is important in life and when you've got a doctor pointing out all the possibilities of what could go wrong, it puts things into perspective.

"I've got two young children now and even though they can act as a motivation tool for fighters, they also highlight the risks that a fighter takes every time we step into the ring."

I do believe Hatton has chosen the right time to retire. He has fought some good fighters in his career but is clearly now in decline and after spending many years in Ricky's shadow, he has managed to come out of that and make a decent name for himself in the pugilistic world.

He will now hopefully be remembered as a little more than just Ricky Hatton's younger brother.