There will always be only one Ricky Hatton

On Saturday night in Manchester, Ricky Hatton’s cathartic return to the ring after a 3 and a half year layoff punctuated by battles with drugs, alcohol and severe depression ended in disaster at the hands of recent world titlist Vyacheslav Senchenko. Dreams of a redemptive world title rematch with Paulie Malignaggi vanished into thin air as a single left hook landed to the body.

 
Returning at the welterweight limit of 147lbs (rather than his beloved light welterweight division), Hatton looked sluggish and plodding from the off. With 20,000 fans creating a raucous atmosphere and chanting “There’s only one Ricky Hatton”, he managed to win the early rounds on pressure and work rate, as Senchenko, who was coming in off his only defeat (a one-sided shellacking at the hands of the aforementioned Malignaggi), struggled to find his range. But midway through, Senchenko got his jab going and Hatton’s lack of timing became increasingly apparent, his wild hooks missing by miles, and, as Hatton remarked, practically causing the punters in the back row to duck.

 
Through round eight, though the official cards had Hatton ahead by margins of 3, 1 and 1, Senchenko was in complete control. In the ninth, a crushing left hook to the liver handed Hatton the third defeat of his career and his first in the U.K. His face contorted into a pained grimace, Hatton tried to get up, but failed, and Senchenko, surprisingly the older man by a year at 35, had the biggest win of his life.

 
This was literally one of the most emotional fights I’ve ever seen, and one of the most emotional post-fight interviews imaginable as a tearful Hatton said, as much to convince himself as his fans, “I’m not a failure”.

 
A year ago, Hatton was a man on the verge of suicide, a shell of a man lying in a disconsolate heap on the couch, his partner, Jennifer, having to literally take the knife from his wrists. He felt he had disgraced his family by hitting the front pages of the tabloid press in a cocaine scandal, and his weight ballooned to over 200 lbs. The dream of coming back to win a world title was the saving grace in his life. It was what was going to rid him of his demons and prove to himself and his children that he wasn’t a failure in life.

 
One can only hope now that the journey itself, back to boxing and back to the straight and narrow, while it ended in a horrible defeat, will be enough to quell those personal demons and let him move on with his life. He can walk away with his head held high for all that he has achieved and all that he has meant to his fans.

 

This article can also be found on fecktv: http://fecktv.com/ricky-hattonvictoryindefeat/