Hatton: My fighting days done

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.”