RICKY HATTON should be forced to watch himself being KO’d by Manny Pacquiao every day before deciding whether he will fight again.
The X-rated video will provide all the evidence he needs to help him make up his mind that his boxing career is over.
Hatton should also be made to study the haunting pictures of his traumatised fiancée Jennifer Dooley at the Las Vegas ringside.
Seeing her pretty face screwed up in a mixture of terror and anguish as she saw him lying comatose on the canvas should make him focus on doing the right thing.
And that’s retire while he’s healthy and can enjoy his millions, happy in the knowledge he has earned a place in boxing’s Hall of Fame.
Because if he should take another blow to the head as severe as the one landed by Pacquiao, he may not get away with it.
I was in the Sky Studios commentating on the action with ex-champs Johnny Nelson and Nicky Piper and we feared the worst.
As the medics worked frantically to bring him around for several dreadful seconds that seemed an eternity, we thought we were staring at a corpse — it was that scary.
I’ve seen many similar devastating one-punch knockouts. Sugar Ray Leonard poleaxing Dave ‘Boy’ Green, Julian Jackson dropping Herol Graham as if he’d been shot and Wilfred Benitez turning the lights out on Maurice Hope were equally frightening.
After suffering such concussive blows Green, Graham and Hope were never the same fighters again.
Hatton being bombed out by Pacquiao was no surprise to me — I’d forecast it repeatedly. Twelve months ago, this column appeared under the headline ‘Quit Now Ricky’.
It was based on what I had seen when Ricky struggled to outpoint journeyman Juan Lazcano in front of more than 50,000 of his ecstatic fans at Manchester City’s ground.
The many flaws that had developed were glaringly obvious that night as Lazcano, a feather-duster puncher, came close to putting him on the floor three times.
Five months earlier, in December 2007, Hatton had been outclassed and demolished by Floyd Mayweather Jnr.
I wrote: “Hatton’s punch resistance has gone, along with much of his timing and reflexes.”
I put that down to his binge-drinking and junk-food diet, which causes him to balloon three to four stones above his fighting weight.
The sycophants and cheerleaders who surround Hatton won’t thank me for saying he has been in a steady decline since he peaked when beating Kostya Tszyu in June 2005. Remember, in December Pacquiao battered Oscar De La Hoya non-stop for eight rounds yet couldn’t put him down once. And Oscar was drained making the welterweight limit.
By contrast, the magical Manny put Hatton on the deck three times in six minutes.
Every ex-fighter I’ve spoken to this week, from Barry McGuigan to Green, wants Ricky to hang up his gloves immediately.
His dad, Ray, says he isn’t going to pressure him as he must make up his own mind.
But his entire family should be begging Ricky to forget about climbing through the ropes again because of the risk he’d be taking.
If Ricky signs a contract for another fight he could be writing a suicide note.
The X-rated video will provide all the evidence he needs to help him make up his mind that his boxing career is over.
Hatton should also be made to study the haunting pictures of his traumatised fiancée Jennifer Dooley at the Las Vegas ringside.
Seeing her pretty face screwed up in a mixture of terror and anguish as she saw him lying comatose on the canvas should make him focus on doing the right thing.
And that’s retire while he’s healthy and can enjoy his millions, happy in the knowledge he has earned a place in boxing’s Hall of Fame.
Because if he should take another blow to the head as severe as the one landed by Pacquiao, he may not get away with it.
I was in the Sky Studios commentating on the action with ex-champs Johnny Nelson and Nicky Piper and we feared the worst.
As the medics worked frantically to bring him around for several dreadful seconds that seemed an eternity, we thought we were staring at a corpse — it was that scary.
I’ve seen many similar devastating one-punch knockouts. Sugar Ray Leonard poleaxing Dave ‘Boy’ Green, Julian Jackson dropping Herol Graham as if he’d been shot and Wilfred Benitez turning the lights out on Maurice Hope were equally frightening.
After suffering such concussive blows Green, Graham and Hope were never the same fighters again.
Hatton being bombed out by Pacquiao was no surprise to me — I’d forecast it repeatedly. Twelve months ago, this column appeared under the headline ‘Quit Now Ricky’.
It was based on what I had seen when Ricky struggled to outpoint journeyman Juan Lazcano in front of more than 50,000 of his ecstatic fans at Manchester City’s ground.
The many flaws that had developed were glaringly obvious that night as Lazcano, a feather-duster puncher, came close to putting him on the floor three times.
Five months earlier, in December 2007, Hatton had been outclassed and demolished by Floyd Mayweather Jnr.
I wrote: “Hatton’s punch resistance has gone, along with much of his timing and reflexes.”
I put that down to his binge-drinking and junk-food diet, which causes him to balloon three to four stones above his fighting weight.
The sycophants and cheerleaders who surround Hatton won’t thank me for saying he has been in a steady decline since he peaked when beating Kostya Tszyu in June 2005. Remember, in December Pacquiao battered Oscar De La Hoya non-stop for eight rounds yet couldn’t put him down once. And Oscar was drained making the welterweight limit.
By contrast, the magical Manny put Hatton on the deck three times in six minutes.
Every ex-fighter I’ve spoken to this week, from Barry McGuigan to Green, wants Ricky to hang up his gloves immediately.
His dad, Ray, says he isn’t going to pressure him as he must make up his own mind.
But his entire family should be begging Ricky to forget about climbing through the ropes again because of the risk he’d be taking.
If Ricky signs a contract for another fight he could be writing a suicide note.
. "Comatosed" 
.
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