(BBC) Former two-weight world champion Ricky Hatton has announced his retirement from boxing following his loss to Vyacheslav Senchenko in Manchester.
Hatton, 34, had not fought since 2009, but his return to the ring yesterday ended with a ninth-round stoppage.
“I needed one more fight to see if I had still got it – and I haven’t,” he said. “I couldn’t have done any better.
“A fighter knows and I know it isn’t there any more. I have got to be a man and say it is the end of Ricky Hatton.”
Hatton announced his return to the ring in September, 14 months after initially calling time on his career.
His opponent Senchenko, while a year older, had only one defeat on his record and proved a difficult opponent in front of 20,000 fans at the Manchester Arena.
Hatton started brightly and fought aggressively, but tired as his defences weakened.
A body shot to his ribs in the ninth ended the fight, and Hatton left the ring in tears after the fight.
“I got in the best shape I possibly could but if I hadn’t been hit with that body shot I would have just scraped over the line,” he admitted.
“It’s too many hard fights, I’ve burned the candle at both ends, I’ve put my body through the mire in and out of the ring.”
Hatton suffered a painful knockout in his previous fight in Las Vegas in 2009 against Manny Pacquiao.
He retired following that defeat, but suffered personal problems outside the ring and Hatton said his return to the ring was a chance of redemption and an opportunity to make his friends and supporters “proud”.
Despite the loss yesterday, he insisted he had achieved his goal: “I’m a happy man tonight. I don’t feel like putting a knife to my wrists.
“I have got the answers I needed. I can look at myself in the mirror and tell myself I did my best.”
