Ricky Hatton was never going to find his redemption inside the ring.
The Hitman was knocked out in the ninth round of his comeback fight against Vyacheslav Senchenko, three years after his last bout, but a win, whilst it would have delighted his overwhelming support, would have done no more for him than this defeat in the long run.
Hatton’s toughest fight has been an internal one, one he has struggled with since his retirement. His depression was well documented, his relentless desire to make his fans proud, to feel worthy, clear in both his words and his actions – his first reaction after tonight’s defeat was to apologise to his supporters.
But the reaction of the crowd to his ring entrance, to everything that happened during the fight and to his defeat, as Hatton lay on the canvas in the foetal position, felled by a body shot reminiscent of the Hitman himself, should be enough to tell him that he has nothing to prove, that he will always be worthy, in the eyes of them and of the sport of boxing itself. He has struggled to see this in the past, we can only hope he can see it now.
A win would have been the dream, a short term high, but it would not have achieved anything for a man who is already a four time World Champion over two weights and has beaten greats such as Kostya Tszyu in such devastating fashion.
Realistically, Hatton was never going to achieve something truly memorable in this comeback, nothing to compare with what he had already done in the past. Everybody could see that, but for him this was a personal battle, clearly something he felt inside him that he had to do.
What he may not of understood is that the redemption he needed did not lie inside the ropes of a boxing ring – there was nothing in the sport that Hatton needed to redeem himself for.
Before tonight, he has lost just twice in 45 professional fights – to Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, widely regarded as the two best pound for pound boxers on the planet today. There is no shame in that.
Hatton must now step away from himself and look at this fight, at his career and at his fans and realise it is time to stop, that it does not matter if he goes out on a win. He is a man that people instantly like, one of Britain’s most popular boxers in recent times, and everyone who supports him is praying that he has found some kind of personal redemption tonight, not through the fight but through people’s words, through the chants of “There’s only one Ricky Hatton” which bellowed around the Manchester Arena just seconds after he was counted out.
Ricky Hatton is a British boxing legend, the best we can all hope for him is that understanding this can help him finally win the battle with himself.