British Boxer Ricky Hatton’s Downward Spiral
British boxers are a talented bunch; none more so than former welterweight and light welterweight champion Ricky Hatton. The talented boxer from Manchester started boxing from the age of 14 and has notched up an impressive win-loss record of 45 wins and 2 losses. He has only lost two professional fights in his career and both of those to boxers who some claim are the best in the world at the moment. A lot of fans consider Hatton the best British boxer around and even the best boxer in the world. However, recently the talented fighter has been going through a serious rough patch. After losing his fight against Manny Pacquiao in 2009, Hatton put his career on hold and seems to be uninterested in coming back into the ring. He recently entered rehab for alcohol and drug problems and it looks like his career is all but over.
Hatton was born in 1978 in Manchester and started boxing at a young age. He showed immense potential for boxing and started training in order to turn professional. In 2005, Hatton had his first fight against Australian Kostya Tszyu, who was regarded as the best pound for pound boxer at the time. It did not go so well for Tszyu as he was defeated by the British boxer in the 12th round by TKO. Hatton next won the WBA title in 2005 but had to relinquish it because he did not want to fight the number one contender at the time. Then the ‘Hitman’, as he is called, decided to move up a weight class to the Welterweight division. The extra weight that Hatton had to pile on to reach the new division seemed to affect his skills and he almost lost his first fight in the new division to Luis Collazo. Hatton eventually won the fight but then he decided to move back down to Light Welterweight. Hatton continued to win fights until he met the very skilled Floyd Mayweather Jr. This was the first loss of his career but it was a hard fought contest between the two of them. Hatton seemed to hold his own but was just edged out on points. Hatton’s second loss and last fight to date was to the Filipino wonder fighter Manny Pacquiao. Last year the Hitman was knocked out by Pacquiao and decided to take a long hiatus from the sport.
The Manchester boxer put his whole career on hold after his loss last year. In interviews in the media, he claimed that he did not have the desire to fight anymore and felt like he had given the sport all he could, made some money from it and now it was time to move on. Some people have said that he has lost the heart to fight and was too devastated by the KO from Pacquiao to re-enter the ring. Mental fortitude is a vital part of boxing and if a boxer has lost that then it looks like his days in the ring are over. But many talented boxers have made comebacks over the years and Hatton is only 31 at the moment, so if he wants he still has a few years of fighting left in him.
Recently the Hitman was found to have snorted a huge amount of cocaine in a nightclub. Pictures were flashed all over the papers and it looked like the problems for the boxer were just getting started. He was then found to also be addicted to alcohol and was suffering from depression. After his recent problems, the boxer has entered rehab to try to get his life back on track. Those close to him say that they knew about the drinking problem but the drug issue is a new one and instead of getting back into the ring, the boxer is blowing all his money on cocaine. Well we will have to wait and see if the boxer they said was the best in the world will be able to get his life sorted again and get back into the ring.
Ricky Hatton is a very talented boxer, and it would be a shame to see his career wither away and die. He should get back into the ring, for the sake of his fans and for his own sake too. Boxing may have been an outlet that helped him deal with life and once that was gone he went off the rails. The boxing world misses Hatton and there is hope that he will return and light up the ring as he did before.
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