RICKY HATTON’S recent appearance on Simon Jordan’s popular Up Front podcast came as a riveting reminder of his history and legacy as not just an elite-level fighter, whose marauding all-action style made him a fan-favourite, but as a bona fide working-class hero when in his prime.

That prime saw him involved in some of his eras most exciting and pulsating battles inside the ring — against the likes of Kostya Tszyu, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao — and then ultimately his well-publicised deep dive down into the depths of depression and despair.

Adding to the Shakesperean trajectory of this particular story was Ricky’s ill-fated attempt to make a comeback three years after his devastating KO loss to Pacquaio. But if his legion of fans were expecting a Hollywood ending when he faced Ukraine's Vyacheslav Senchenko in front of a full house at the Manchester Arena on that cold November night in 2012, they were fated to go home disappointed.

Despite going to the well numerous times throughout the fight, it just wasn’t there anymore, to the point that by the time he got KO’d in the ninth, Hatton’s face was that of a fighter who’d taken way more shots than he’d delivered.

Looking back, the signs were there for all to see as to the fragility of his mind during the build-up to the fight. Since announcing his comeback at the beginning of September 2012, Hatton was more like a man embarked on a prolonged public therapy session than a fighter getting ready to trade leather. To listen to him pour his heart out in the weeks and days leading up to one of the most eagerly anticipated boxing comebacks in years, was to listen to a man still grappling with the emotional turbulence that had brought chaos to his existence after stepping away from the ring back in 2009.

Professional boxing is a cruel business, we all know that, wherein just as glory and success in the ring are witnessed and shared by millions, so is defeat and failure. The heights of fame and adulation are cut down by the lows of humiliation and ignominy. Just as soon as a former champion bows out on the back of a performance that leaves the sport lamenting what was and no longer is, the spotlight shifts to the next who’s arrived to take his place. It is a metaphor for life at its most primitive, wherein the young become old, the strong weak, and today’s winners tomorrow’s losers.

This is why the most important victory any world champion can achieve in the sport is to retire before being retired. Most don’t and end up doing so and are instead forced from the ring on the back of a bad defeat, climbing through the ropes with their head down and a talismanic towel draped over their head, wishing the ground would open up to spare them the ordeal of facing the fans, the press, and a world that just half an hour before, when they were making their way to the ring, had been united in adulation. Sympathy cuts the proud like freshly sharpened sword, and you could see that in Ricky Hatton’s face as he struggled to remain composed while the fans sung his name in a boxing arena for the last time.

Well-meaning friends, trainers, his army of fans — all had played their part in keeping the dream alive. Yet, in the end, boxing could never have been the answer to the emotional and personal demons that Ricky Hatton had contended with since being retired by Pacquiao in 2009. All it could ever have achieved was distraction from reality, a temporary palliative in place of a cure, one that can only come when he learned to accept who he is outside the ring in the quiet place that is normality rather than in the crucible of competition. For every top boxer or competitive athlete and sportsman, it is not enough to merely accept the comparative mundanity of life in retirement — the lack of purpose and with identity — it is important to embrace it.

Fast forward to now and the old saw that time is a healer has never been proved truer than when it comes to Ricky Hatton’s journey from emotional wreck, who sought to self-medicate and/or forget with alcohol and drug abuse — a man who went through widely publicised bitter rifts with long-time trainer, Billy Graham, and also his own parents — to where he is as 2023 comes to its close.

As revealed to Simon Jordan, he has repaired his relationships with all concerned, is running a successful and thriving gym in Manchester, and is busy guiding the fledgling career of his son, Campbell Hatton.

Ricky Hatton is a former fighter who experienced the highest of the highs and lowest of the lows. Now in the second act of his life, he has found something approaching inner peace, able to look back on his career with pride rather than failure. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom, it is said, which is where this proud son of Manchester currently resides.

Good for him.