By Niall Hickman, UK Express
THE ghostwriter of 'The Hitman: My Story', pens an open letter to Ricky Hatton in the wake of his comeback.
Dear Ricky,
When we sat together for hour after hour discussing all matters from Manchester City to the mad, bad world of boxing, it was always a subject which came up time and time again...when to call it a day?
During the course of ghostwriting your autobiography four years ago, I was hugely privileged to see at close hand exactly what made you, the ‘Hitman’, such a fistic assassin.
You had just beaten Kostya Tszyu to capture the world crown you had dedicated your life towards. Remember? You were about to embark on a journey to America, taking unprecedented numbers of fight fans with you on an exodus no one who was there will ever forget.
Hanging up your boxing gloves when it is the only thing you have known for over 20 years is not an easy business, but you always insisted you knew when the time would be right. Last year, when you quit, was the right time. My argument, as someone who is on the outside looking in, having never laced a glove in my life, is a simple one. It comes in the person of boxing hero, Roberto Duran.
Duran is now 58 and only finished fighting nine years ago. He was a pugilistic phenomenon who, at the height of his powers, I would have crawled barefoot over a combination of hot coals and coral to watch. He was your type of boxer, a no-nonsense slugger who came to fight. Duran beat Sugar Ray Leonard in 1980, lost in the rematch and should never have fought again. He went on to lose, lose and lose again to fighters who would not have stood a lick with him in his prime.
For Duran, read Roy Jones Jnr, or Evander Holyfield. Both these once-magnificent fighting machines are, in supermarket terms, well past their sell-by date. I was lucky enough to see Jones and Holyfield at their best and believe me, if there was a repeat of an Open University lecture in nuclear physics on an obscure satellite television channel, I would choose the bloke with the beard and woolly jumper over watching them fight today.
Ricky, you don’t need to box any longer, as you are – quite rightly – financially secure for life. Your ring record of 45 wins and just two defeats makes you one of the best fighters Britain has ever produced. That is indisputable. Bear in mind that your two losses were to Floyd Mayweather Jnr and Manny Pacquiao. So your legacy as a great, great fighter is intact. You will be 32 in October and my inclination is that, unlike goalkeepers, you are not going to improve with age.
I know you love to fight and you always will. You would have done it for nothing and you always said those days in the back of your amateur coach Ted Peate’s knackered van on the way to shows nationwide were the happiest of your life. I know I will see you soon and if you are set on returning I will certainly be there, cheering you when you do step back into the ring.
But I will always want only what is best for you. So, when I do see you, I will look you in the eyes, mate, and say: “Remember about those chats we had about calling it a day?” And I will urge you to call it quits. I am worried that your desire for “one last memorable night” will lead to another, and another. Just like Duran, your impending return was perhaps always on the cards and the decision must be yours and yours alone.
It is often crass and glib for boxing writers such as me to say fighters should retire, when it is not their livelihood, their profession and often their only real meaning in life. Who are we to say ‘walk away’? Mayweather and Pacquiao told you that more eloquently, in fighting language, than I ever could. But I am your friend, Ricky, and I don’t want to see you hurt.
“Nasty, brutish and short” is not a firm of particularly unpleasant lawyers, but a quotation from Thomas Hobbes’ 17th century Leviathan, to describe the lives of mankind. It is also a very apt summary of the fight game. Go my friend, and go now.
Source: express.co.uk
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