Punch Drunk Ricky Playing A Dangerous Game

By Luke Edwards on Jan 13, 10 05:05 PM

So Ricky Hatton is going to fight again against the advice of almost everyone who has an ounce of respect in the fight game.

If any of you have seen Hatton on television recently he looks about as much like a professional boxer as I do after eight pints and four double vodkas. Not so much out of shape as shapeless.

We know he has had a drink, he looks as though he has been doing little else since he was flattened by Manny Pacquiao, but this has all the sense of drunken call to your ex-wife at 4am in the morning to see if she's interested in a reconciliation after catching you in bed with her best friend.

Hatton, at his peak, was a world class boxer who fell short when it came to fighting the very best, Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

He should not be criticised for that. He took a shot at the best and lost, but at least he didn't hide from them, ducking behind contracts, schedules and ego.

He didn't claim to be the greatest without taking on the great opponents as so many other boxers do. He is one of the best we have seen in a ring in this country and a throughly entertaining performer he has been.

But what is about boxers fighting well beyond their best before date? Hatton probably didn't want to end his career on a defeat, but by coming out of retirement after so long he is risking far more than just his reputation.

He has been knocked out heavily twice in two of his last three fights and has always been the sort of warrior boxer who was willing to take a battering on the way to victory. He is a brawler and brawlers get punished along the way. It's why we love them so much.

Not only that, but he has never lived like an athlete. Whenever he gets the chance he enjoys the sort of unhealthy diet that would give that woman on You Are What You Eat a heart attack. Mind you that might not be such a bad thing. Joke, it's a joke!

He is fighting for fighting's sake, to massage his ego, to collect one more payday to cover a lavish lifestyle in retirement.

But in doing so he is in danger of ruining our memories of him as a pale shadow of the boxer he once was who could end up doing lasting damage to himself in the process.

Only time will tell, he might just sign off in style and critics like me will be forced to backtrack, but why take the risk?