By Adam Hill: The Manchester Evening News Arena was filled with electric nostalgia and the booms of drums echoed throughout the stadium. Ricky ‘The Hitman’ Hatton (45-2) didn’t look likely to ever return to the ring- well documented personal battles and terrifying memories of a night and a Filipino three years ago almost breaking his warrior spirit. After an exciting undercard the time had come to see whether Ricky Hatton was still a contender.

Vyacheslav Senchenko (32-1), sporting a Manchester United shirt (Ricky being a fan of arch-rivals Manchester City), entered the ring intent on destroying the hopes of everyone at ringside.
Then, as if he had never left, the crowd erupted on reception of Hatton. Michael Buffer, unable to be heard over the roar of the Hitman faithful, struggled through the pre-fight proceedings before the bell rang and the two fighters began to circle. The bout was scheduled for 10 rounds.

The early exchanges, met with roars from the crowd, as both fighters traded. Hatton favouring the jab was the slightly busier fighter but appeared to be struggling to time shots. Senchenko landed with right shots at the start- but was worn down by Hatton as he began to look more and more at home in the ring. The jab deserted, the Englishman began to look more and more like the Ricky Hatton of old.

The Ukrainian refusing to be budged had success with the jab in round 6. Hatton launched a series of sloppy hooks, almost swinging himself off of his feet at one point, allowing Senchenko back into the fight.

As the bell rang at the end of the eighth Senchenko landed a heavy straight, thoughts at ringside were that Hatton would need to up his work-rate to secure victory.
Round 9 began and Hatton, failing to land, tried to take the fight to the Ukranian but was decimated with a pounding shot to the body. The come-back of Ricky Hatton had ended in failure.
All credit to Vyacheslav Senchenko, although not likely to set the world alight, who displayed great determination and courage to withstand the initial stages of the fight and a huge amount of tenacity. Taking his chance, in the face of thousands of screaming fans in Hatton’s back-yard was no easy task for the Ukranian. A teary Hatton admitted he was ‘just gutted’ but maintained he ‘wants to fight for world titles’ however ‘there’s a lot to think about’.