By Terence Dooley
Former featherweight world champion Barry McGuigan has cast doubts over Ricky Hatton's comeback plans. The popular pundit believes that Ricky is making a mistake and should only return if he intends to take on a smaller, risk-free opponent.
“Hatton shouldn't be taking a fight like Juan Manuel Marquez, because you can't tell me he isn't a dangerous opponent still. My concern is that Hatton could be dismantled,” declared McGuigan when talking to The Telegraph.
“What concerns me is the accumulation of punishment that Hatton has taken in his career, having been an attritional fighter. In most of his fights he wore his opponents down and beat them up, and took a lot of punches doing so. Hatton has also been world class at abusing his body outside the ring, putting on 40 per cent of body weight on top of a lean fighting body. Ricky took that to a new level, and is a poor role model in dietary terms for kids in that sense. The way he has lived may have come back to haunt him in his last few fights.”
Barry went onto state that the only fight Hatton should consider is an anodyne 'farewell' outing at his beloved Manchester City's football ground.
“If he fights an innocuous puncher, gets a big crowd at the Manchester City football ground and it's like a tribute night, fine...Ricky might say 'Who does he think he is to judge me?', but I'm 48 years old and I've been through what he has at the very highest level and seen tragedies in the ring and guys damaged there, and sometimes fighters have to be protected from themselves,” revealed McGuigan.
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