Hitman’s Last Stand: The night Ricky Hatton knew his time was up

THE MOST devastating punch the good Manny Pacquiao would ever throw was additionally the punch that inflicted on Ricky Hatton such a way of despair that he toyed with taking his personal life. 

When the proud Hatton was left susceptible on the canvas on the MGM Grand Garden Arena in May 2009 it appeared unthinkable he would ever once more discover himself in so chilling a spot, and but what finally transpired proved significantly extra damaging.

No longer pushed by furthering considered one of British boxing’s biggest careers, the bereft Hatton struggled with alcoholism and melancholy, and even turned to cocaine. Estranged from his mother and father after an argument over his father Ray’s dealing with of his enterprise affairs, his psychological well being continued to deteriorate, and to the extent his then-partner Jennifer discovered him in a darkened room, sobbing and holding a knife to his wrist.

“I don’t want people telling my kids that I blew it,” Hatton mentioned in September 2012 when he introduced he would struggle as soon as once more on November 24 on the Manchester Arena, the scene of his biggest triumph. Previously obese and under-motivated, after visiting The Priory after which Sporting Chance, Britain’s hottest ever fighter was decided to “redeem” himself the one means he knew.

“I thought I’d hurt my reputation,” Hatton, talking 10 years on, advised Boxing News. “I do know everybody had sympathy for me and will see I wasn’t in a great place, however a few of the issues showing of me drunk, and taking medication – I felt I’d let me household, me followers and everybody down. 

“It doesn’t matter how many people say, ‘Ricky, we’ve all had problems, you’re no different’, I needed to make a comeback to redeem meself and prove meself. The minute I started losing weight and feeling better about meself, and then thinking about all the bad things that I did, I wanted to wipe the slate clear.”

For all of his concern, affection for Hatton remained such that tickets for the 18,000-capacity area bought out inside 48 hours of occurring sale, significantly earlier than an opponent had even been named. 

Yet the place he had as soon as been the poster boy for Sky Sports’ Box Office platform, the dedication just lately made to Matchroom over those who beforehand existed with Frank Warren, Frank Maloney and Hatton Promotions, and the broadcaster’s reluctance to think about pay-per-view fights, meant that talks relating to a return there didn’t even begin. 

“The Hitman” additionally for the primary time recruited Bob Shannon as his coach, off the again of his admiration for Shannon’s success with his brother Matthew; two weeks after saying his return he then revealed that Ukraine’s Vyacheslav Senchenko can be the opposite fighter within the ring.

“I needed a fight or a name I could get meself up for,” he defined. “In hindsight, I don’t assume anybody would have blamed me if I simply obtained somebody to knock over, shake the cobwebs off, get the boldness again after which struggle Senchenko. He was 32-1 and had solely just lately misplaced his world title [to Paulie Malignaggi]. 

“If I could turn the clock back I’d probably pick someone a little bit easier and then gone for Senchenko. But I’ve always wanted to fight the best. ‘A few years ago this wouldn’t have been an issue, so if I can’t beat him now I’ve got the answer I’m searching for – whether I’ve still got it.’ He was solid, and hit a lot harder [than Malignaggi].”

That plans existed for a future struggle with both Paulie Malignaggi or Amir Khan within the expectation of victory over Senchenko – at 35 a yr Hatton’s senior – was an additional demonstration of his enduring business attraction. BoxNation and Primetime vied for the rights ultimately received by Primetime to broadcast Hatton-Senchenko as a pay-per-view within the UK, and Showtime invested to televise it within the States. 

Suggestions regardless endured that Hatton’s motivation to return owed to his need to safe a long-term tv deal for the nice steady that then included, amongst others, Martin Murray, Rendall Munroe and Scott Quigg, however he mentioned: “I felt very let down from a television perspective. [But] the comeback was solely for me. [And] it was for reasons other than boxing.”

The day earlier than he formally introduced his plans there was additionally an altercation with his father within the automotive park of his fitness center Hatton Health and Fitness during which Hatton Snr threw a punch that led to his arrest. “I was very disappointed,” mentioned Hatton Jnr. “There was issues occurring, personally, with me dad, and I assumed it very unusual that the day earlier than me press convention he’d select to return and have an argument with me. 

“‘He’s picked his moment here’ [laughs]. It was the first fight me dad wasn’t involved with, because we’d fell out, and I don’t know whether he’d just had a bad morning, but when he looks back I’ve no doubt he regrets it. You’d think he’d be happy, me making a comeback, getting in the right place, in shape again – to get me pride back, re-establish meself and apologise to the fans. But me dad for some reason had enough of the idea. It’s a day I care not to remember.”

“Whatever happened that day in the car park did affect him,” Shannon advised BN. “I’ve got photos of the [pre-fight] dressing room. He was quite solemn. His head’s down quite a lot – he was like that most of the time in the dressing room. I think he was having deep thoughts [about his parents], and he said afterwards: ‘I looked and me mum and dad weren’t there, and it just weren’t the same.’ He’s a creature of habit, and his mum and dad were always by that same part of the ring. Things like that make all the difference. The closer he got to the fight, he went within himself.”

In the Primetime documentary The Road to Redemption, Hatton minimize a considerably extra melancholic and regretful determine than the zealous one seen in his earlier appearances on 24/7, however Shannon regardless remained unconcerned about his need. “I could see a twinkle in his eyes,” he mentioned. “I went to mattress at night considering this was the following step up. I needed to be disciplined – I seemed up to Ricky and the place he’d been and what he’d achieved – I’ve obtained to inform him to do the exhausting, gruelling classes.

“The Sunday run is gruelling. Most people shy away from it – a lot of fighters have. He did everything I asked of him – everything. Monk’s Road; they call it Monk’s Hill. It’s a mile long but it’s so steep it’s incredible. We took a few of the lads with us. I thought, ‘I’ll find out how much Ricky really wants to come back – this will tell a lot about him’.It was a terribly windy, cold day – it was freezing. The wind was blowing in our faces and he was running up, and he had a black tracksuit on, zipped up, but it was getting full of air. But he carried on. ‘He wants it.’ He was in fantastic shape.”

For all that the rangy Senchenko undoubtedly represented a high-risk opponent for a fighter who needed to proceed to overcome vital psychological demons and take care of three-and-a-half years of ring rust, the harm inflicted on his physique throughout his prolonged interval of inactivity, and the bodily problem offered by a pure welterweight, it was solely as soon as steered that Hatton’s progress in coaching – he may very well be seen with a black eye shortly earlier than struggle week – was something however easy. 

When he and his opponent each weighed in at 10st 6lbs 10oz (Hatton had beforehand reached 15st) at Manchester Town Hall, nonetheless, whereas Hatton seemed in preventing form from the neck down, as Senchenko towered over him there was instantly no disguising his ageing face.

“I felt good sparring; everyone said I was strong and fit,” he remembers. “I did the weight comfortably. The pre-fight changing room, I was looking forward to it. The ring walk was great – it’s the one thing you always miss. I started off alright [in the fight] but then I lost my way a little bit in the middle rounds. It doesn’t matter how many rounds sparring you do, sometimes when you get in there with the little gloves on, it just hits you.”

“[While training] he was sharp,” mentioned Shannon. “The difference between Ricky and Senchenko; he was fighting fit and Ricky wasn’t. [Ricky] was dead sharp. [But] you can have all the sparring and training you want, you’ve got to get that atmosphere; that timing in the ring. No trainer can give you that.”

For his first ring stroll on the Manchester Arena since his life-changing victory over Kostya Tszyu, Hatton was the main focus of an environment to surpass maybe even that night in 2005 or towards Floyd Mayweather two years later. In entrance of the hundreds supporting him – Nigel Benn and Roberto Duran included – he made an encouraging begin when his aggression received him the opening 4 rounds, even on the expense of his face reddening up, the events when he wildly swung and missed, and the primary time his head so tellingly snapped again. 

From the fifth, with his already questionable timing but to enhance, Hatton’s type and stability turned extra ragged, and to the extent that within the sixth he misplaced his footing when lacking with a left hand. His elevated perspective had performed little to vary the emotional fighter he had lengthy been, contributing to the indicators of frustration he was unable to cover, and even a rising sense of hysteria that drained him additional.

“Midway through the fight, I thought to myself, ‘This isn’t quite right; you’re not quite getting out the way of them; you’re not quite landing on the target like you used to; if I can just get my head over the finish line…’,” Hatton mentioned. “I knew halfway through the best of me was behind me.”

Said Shannon: “I mentioned to him, ‘Get your eye in; don’t go speeding it; feint a bit; he works behind his jab’, however right away when the bell went the group obtained behind him and he went straight out to nail him, and he practically did. But he was making an attempt too exhausting.

“After three or four rounds you could see his timing was well out, and [Senchenko] was well-schooled – working behind the jab and stepping back, and Ricky was lunging in.”

Hatton was vulnerable to falling behind on the scorecards and fighting swelling round his proper eye when, in the direction of the conclusion of the ninth and penultimate spherical, Senchenko landed a hurtful left hand to his physique. 

“Sometimes you concentrate on the shots that come down the pipe and you forget about the body shots,” Hatton, as soon as one of many best of physique punchers, defined. “He missed with a right hand and he just got in the right position for a body shot. It wasn’t one of them fights where I got beat up or a knockout like the Pacquiao fight; it was a fight I was probably just about winning. If that’s the way you’re going to bow out it was probably a decent way to, minus the result.”

Shannon’s voice cracked with emotion when he mentioned: “I assumed for a minute he was going to get up, as a result of he went on one knee. But he was in plenty of ache, and he had to return down. God, that was hurtful – it damage me. It nonetheless does, to at the present time. I may see he was going to whip one in – he stepped throughout. It actually sunk in. 

“He would have got up, because Ricky was a tough and really proud man. I was mortified. I knew how much it meant to Ricky. How hard he’d worked. I was so concerned about his welfare and how much it meant to him. He’s come back to redeem himself and now he’s been stopped. To come back like he did at his age, and what he’d gone through, and the fall out with his parents, and the fall out with Billy [Graham] that really hurt him, and the Pacquiao thing – all of that was in him. To come back like he did, with everyone behind him, and to fall at the last hurdle… that was cruel.”

“It ended up in defeat,” Hatton mirrored, “and everybody thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s not dealt with defeats nice, Ricky’s going to go straight again to the place he went’, however I obtained the solutions I wanted to. That I haven’t obtained it anymore. 

“I could move on with the rest of me life as a trainer. I’ve never looked back.”

When Hatton dropped to 1 knee, after which each, an eerie silence and sense of dread immediately crammed the Manchester Arena. What felt just like the slowest of 10 counts began, earlier than these determined for him to win – and even for his comeback to finish with extra dignity – tried to roar him again to his toes. Hatton returned to 1 knee, however, a lone determine within the centre of the ring, he finally obtained no additional. 

The referee Victor Loughlin was the primary to console him as he collapsed again to the canvas, earlier than Shannon and his assistant coach Mike Jackson climbed by means of the ropes to aim to assist him handle the bodily and emotional ache. When he recovered sufficient to return to his toes, Hatton, slumped over those self same ropes, was applauded after which serenaded – his crowd was decided to remind him that nothing had modified. 

His third and ultimate defeat – fittingly in his hometown, and delivered by a vicious punch to the physique in one other bruising struggle – had offered the most recent reminder that Britain has had at the least a handful of better champions. But braver? There have maybe been none.