Ricky Hatton thought of committing suicide after Pacquiao loss

By Boxing News - 09/29/2011 - Comments

Image: Ricky Hatton thought of committing suicide after Pacquiao lossBy Sean McDaniel: Former two division world champion Ricky Hatton admitted that he thought of ending his life after his 2nd round TKO loss to Manny Pacquiao in 2009. Hatton’s life truly hit rock bottom at that moment to the point where visions of suicide floated around Hatton’s head.

Hatton said to BBC Sport: “I was so down, I was crying and breaking out and contemplating suicide. I was going deeper and deeper into depression. I was getting depresssed. I was going out and having a few drinks. The worst thing you can do with depression is add alcohol to it. I needed something to get my backside in gear and pull my finger out. I contemplated retirement and didn’t cope with it well.”

The problem that Hatton had was he didn’t come into his fight with Pacquiao with the resolve to stick to a game plan that his trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr. came up with. It may not have mattered in the long run, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt. The last thing that Mayweather Sr. wanted Hatton to do is go out winging with leaping left hooks and trying to slug with the faster Pacquiao, yet that’s exactly what Hatton did. He ignored the advice given to him and tried to fight the same way he had in many of his other bouts against different opposition.

Hatton failed to adapt in that fight and payed for it. Hatton tried a one side fits all approach to the Pacquiao fight and the end result was predictable. And then to further compound his problems, instead of understanding how he hadn’t followed the correct game plan and trying to learn from it, Hatton beat himself up mentally and just quit in the prime of his career. Talk about self defeat. Hatton didn’t need Pacquiao to beat him, because he did a much better job of doing it himself. Hatton ended his career rather than learning from the Pacquiao fight. Hopefully he’s happy in retirement. He still had so much in front of him even after the Pacquiao fight if he learned from the fight, but instead he chose to walk away.



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