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November 26, 2012

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No dream comeback for Hatton

FORMER light-welterweight champion Ricky Hatton hastily retired again on Saturday after he was knocked out by Vyacheslav Senchenko on his return to the ring after more than three years.

"I needed one more fight to see if I had still got it, and I haven't," said the 34-year-old Hatton, whose record dropped to 45-3 (32 KO).

The Briton succumbed to a painful body shot in the ninth round from the Ukrainian welterweight Senchenko, 35, in a non-title fight in his home city of Manchester.

"A fighter knows and I know it isn't there anymore," Hatton said. "It's too many hard fights, I've burned the candle at both ends, I've put my body through the mire in and out of the ring, but it doesn't matter how hard I train, I couldn't have done any better."

Hatton fought again 3-1/2 years after being knocked out by Manny Pacquiao, a loss which sent the former two-weight champion into retirement.

"I'm a happy man tonight," Hatton said. "I don't feel like putting a knife to my wrists. I have got the answers I needed. I got the opportunity and I got the answers and no matter how upsetting it is, I have got to be a man and say, 'It is the end of Ricky Hatton'."

An emotional Hatton said he would devote his future to his family and his promotional activities after deciding to call it a day.




 

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