guardian.co.uk
So, after hibernating since May, Ricky Hatton is coming back. He's going to put down the bacon butty and rip four stones off that small frame to get into fighting trim for the tough Mexican Juan Manuel Márquez. I can't say this is the best news I've heard in a while, for boxing or for Hatton.
Fighters fight for one of two reasons: money or glory. Hatton says he doesn't need the former (well, not more than any other millionaire needs money), so he must miss the applause, the buzz or, as he put it this week, he has "the itch". That's not a good reason to take a suspect chin back into a boxing ring. He was badly knocked out by Manny Pacquiao six months ago; his chin hasn't grown any muscles since, and he risks humiliation this time.
The game is addictive, as nearly any former fighter will tell you, but you don't kick the habit by getting beaten up in public, especially by such an accomplished operator as Márquez who, although outclassed, went the distance with Floyd Mayweather Jr only two months ago and who ran Manny Pacquiao close twice. So Ricky wants to fight the man who was competitive with the only two fighters he himself has lost to – badly.
All this fight will do is feed Hatton's addiction. No apologies here for repeating something Barry McGuigan has said many times: boxers are the first ones to know when to quit and the last to admit it.
Just say Hatton, now 31, does the impossible and gets past Márquez. He won't stop there – but he will be growing older by the round. If Márquez doesn't get him, someone else will, someone tougher and younger, someone who will see him as a stepping stone.
There is another reason Hatton should not fight again: his drinking. He has always said his lifestyle makes him what he is. It gives him a thrill. He lives at a hundred miles an hour, and trains at the same speed. In his mind you can't have one without the other. "It's what I am," he has said many times, and nobody has persuaded him otherwise.
Before Hatton fought Mayweather in December 2007, his then trainer Billy Graham, who knows about these things, talked about Ricky's legendary capacity for alchohol: "What it will do, his lifestyle, it will stop longevity. But the last thing I want for a fighter, especially Ricky Hatton, is longevity. Longevity does you harm in this business. So I'm not worried about that. When they say he won't last that long? Great."
That was two years ago. Since then, Hatton has split with Graham and been knocked out twice. His longevity is over.
Ricky's been boxing since he was 10. He knows the sport inside out and he has seen great fighters go one fight too many – Kostya Tszyu, for instance. That was Hatton's finest night by a mile, Saturday, 4 June, 2005, at a packed MEN Arena; he was inspired. But he knows he caught Tszyu on the last leg of a long journey – and Tszyu knew it, too.
Tszyu also has been tempted a few times to fight again and – so far – has resisted the urge. Let's hope it stays that way because he would do nothing but ruin our memories of him.
And I'm afraid that is what Hatton is getting ready to do. He's been a wonderful fighter, a terrific character and a hero like Manchester hasn't had since George Best.
That last point is half the problem. Ricky desperately wants to please his fans, the 30,000 and more who followed him to Las Vegas, a travelling circus who lit up boxing like probably no other fans could.
But Ricky needs to step back from the roar of the crowd – because it is distant and fading. They're not the ones taking the punches. Their health is not at risk.
The real warning signs for Hatton arrived in the weeks before he fought Pacquiao. A young Cuban light-middleweight called Erislandy Lara gave Ricky such a tough time in sparring in Las Vegas he was kicked out of the camp.
Lara is a serious prospect (he is unbeaten in eight fights, with five KOs), and much bigger than Hatton. So what was this young monster doing in a ring with Hatton so close to a big fight? What genius brought in a big man to prepare Ricky to fight a smaller, quicker man?
That camp was the worst preparation Hatton could have had for Pacquiao. Floyd Mayweather Sr, a defensive master if slightly eccentric, was marginalised and, ultimately ignored. Hatton went to the ring with a divided team and it showed in the short time the fight lasted.
Hatton looked as if he were fighting on roller skates. His balance was awry and his judgment of space and distance awful. He fought like a desperate man. While he did himself no favours with what passed for strategy, it was still no disgrace to lose to a wonderful champion, but the piercing scream from ringside by his girlfriend Jennifer when he hit the canvas in round two should have been the only voice he listened to. It should have been the final bell for Hatton, but it seems not.
I, foolishly perhaps, had given him a chance of beating Mayweather. I sensed a vitality and strength in him, a determination that would carry him through against a fighter who'd never been to war and who was carrying a suspect left elbow. It didn't happen, not because Hatton was shot, but because he fought a stupid fight.
There was chaos in the corner and in Hatton's mind. That confusion, which resurfaced in May, does not seem to have gone away. Ricky still thinks he can do in the ring what his brain tells him. It would be a fairytale if he did come back. But boxing is about reality, as Hatton knows better than most.
He said before fighting Mayweather: "There's no more honest place in sport than the boxing ring. You can't tell lies in there, you can't pretend."
I'm afraid that is exactly what he is doing now.
Source:
guardian.co.uk
