Bruising defeat finally gave me answers, reveals Hatton

Ricky Hatton wiped tears from his swollen eyes and insisted his failed comeback attempt against Vyacheslav Senchenko on Saturday night has given him all the incentive he needs to emerge as a winner in his hardest fight to come.

There was a painful irony about the fact that it was a deep left hook to the body which left Hatton down and out on the MEN Arena canvas in front of thousands of his stunned home-town supporters.

It was precisely the punch with which Hatton had felled so many world-class opponents in his prime, and it was just gone midnight in Manchester when Hatton admitted with brutal candour it was the last he will ever take. Hatton said: “A fighter knows when it’s not there any more, and it’s not there. I’m not going to put myself through that torture again, and I’m not going to put my family through it.

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“If I don’t draw a line in the sand now and call time on my boxing career, I’m never going to do it. I was heartbroken and I’ll probably cry tonight – but I’m happy that I went in there and found it out.”

An odyssey that began at the Kingsway Leisure Centre in Widnes in 1997 and led him and his thousands of followers all the way to the Las Vegas Strip had finally been brought to end by the ticking of the clock.

And it was clear from the reaction of his adoring fans, who lulled themselves from shocked silence to chant Hatton’s name as he was helped from the canvas, that he leaves them with no sense of something else to prove.

As of now, all Hatton’s energy and focus will be directed towards his young family as he seeks to swat away the demons which drove him to his comeback, and make a success of other aspects of his personal and boxing lives.

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In an extraordinarily moving speech to the assembled press, Hatton said: “Now I can go and be the best father to my kids, and I can go to the gym on Monday and try to be the best promoter in the world.

“It was hard for me to retire the first time. I knew it was gone but I kept at it, and I eventually landed myself in so much trouble, but it’s not going to be like that this time.

“I can go into retirement as a happy man. Nobody wants to be knocked out in their last two fights but I had to put the ghosts to bed and find out what I wanted to find out.

“I’ll get up in the morning and be very content. I am leaving with a healthy state of mind. I’m a happy man now. I don’t feel like putting a knife to my wrists. I have got the answers I needed.”

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Hatton soaked up two rights in the sixth but his three-and-a-half-year ring absence was beginning to tell, with Senchenko starting to land more freely and clawing back his scorecard deficit.

When the end came in round nine it was dramatic, Senchenko digging a superb left to the ribs which dumped Hatton on all fours. The crowd willed Hatton to rise to his feet for one last shot, but it was not to be.

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