By Gareth A Davies, Telegraph.co.uk
So, Ricky Hatton is finished in the ring as a fighter. He saw sense. A wise move. The final act which saw the curtain fall on the British folk hero’s last scene in the square circle came from the flashing fists of the Filipino phenomenon Manny Pacquiao – whose inexorable rise, in the ring and within politics – knows no bounds.
Hatton suffered depression after the loss to Pacquiao. After Floyd Mayweather Jnr had inflicted Hatton’s first career defeat and created the blueprint on December 8, 2008, the whirlwind from Mindanao ripped Hatton apart and bludgeoned him to flatness on the canvas. Two rounds of devastation. Part Pacquiao, part Hatton.
Hatton, a consummate professional with the media, the fans, with wedding parties…with a host of celebrities and sportsmen he had come to endear himself to, had come to the end of the road. After being released from hospital, having been brutally knocked out in the same ring in the MGM Grand Garden Arena where he had lost to Mayweather, Hatton had failed to show up, as he always did, to speak to the British media the next morning. It was a sign. The writing was on the wall.
Hatton always had a story to regale us with, a new angle, another twist. But on this morning, just silence. One or two writers, not those regularly on the boxing beat, were up in arms. Gareth Williams, CEO of Hatton Promotions, had turned up instead. He copped the flak.
No one knew then if it was all over. Though we all knew. Hatton looked finished. Depression came for him soon afterwards. And tears for a long time. He didn’t want to call time on the end of a drubbing. We all offered our sixpence worth, but to be frank, it was nothing to do with us. Only the fighter can decide. Ask Angelo Dundee. He told me recently he tried it many times with Muhammad Ali, but it went in one ear and out the other. Ali ducked and dived the issue with Dundee, every time it was broached.
At different times over the last two years, tales have emerged of Hatton, drunk, saying to those close to him that he could not face the long road back. Or that he was back in the ring; that he was no longer 190 lbs (fighting weight 140-147lbs); that he would fight Oscar de la Hoya, who was making a comeback; or Erik Morales…I believe that one or two of those came close, too. Thankfully, the demons have not left Hatton. He can walk away from the ring that has defined the 32-year-old as a man.
Two of his final four acts were against the two boxers who defined this age. We can all blame the brilliance and brutality of Manny Pacquiao for Hatton’s end, and Floyd Mayweather, perhaps, for loosening the strings on that, by being the first man to knock the Mancunian out. With the US $50 million fortune he amassed in the ring still intact, Hatton is still standing. He remains enormously popular.
The build up to his fights, visiting his old gym in the musty former Denton Hat Factory, the crushed coal voice of trainer Billy Graham and his iguana in the stifling back room behind the ring, will never be forgotten. The travelling fans, the march on America, the repetition of disbelief from the ‘liccle lad from the Manchester council estate’ seeing his name up in lights in Las Vegas, the fight capital of the world. The glory, and the pain.
There’s only one Ricky Hatton…
Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk
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