Hatton: beaten for the first time

THE HOMECOMING
Ricky Hatton v Juan Lazcano
IBO Light-Welterweight title
Live on Sky Box Office
7.30pm, Saturday, May 24
Call 08442 410888 to book
Click here for more information

Also see

• Homecoming homepage
• Ricky's Fight Diary


• How to book the fight
• Sky Bet odds

Sky Sports' legendary boxing panel have followed Ricky Hatton throughout his rise to the very top.

They will be there on May 24th when he comes home to Manchester but in the run-up to the big night, will be sharing their expert insight with us here on skysports.com.

We will be putting a series of questions to Jim Watt, Johnny Nelson, Glenn McCrory and Nicky Piper as we countdown to The Homecoming, so let them mark your card ahead of a massive night in Manchester.

Question Three: Can you remember what it felt like to lose for the first time? How - if at all - might it affect Ricky Hatton when he steps into the ring on May 24.

GLENN McCRORY: My big defeat came at heavyweight and I had been unbeaten in 14 but I was only 19 and had kind of been thinking that I was going to get a good thumping one of those days anyway! It was the realisation that I was out of my depth and then I lost four of my next five so went back down to cruiserweight.

But I honestly think this is a really hard fight for Ricky, not necessarily because of the opponent, but because of the circumstances. His bubble burst in that Mayweather defeat and after being undefeated and invincible every other boxer, including Lazcano, will now fancy his chances.

When you get back in the ring after a defeat and start getting hit, different things go through your head than before and panic can set in. This will probably be his biggest challenge in boxing because he will have to exorcise some ghosts - and that can be mentally tiring.

JOHNNY NELSON: The biggest fight will be against the beast inside him - that's the only thing that can beat him here. Any boxer, regardless of who he has lost to, has to test himself in the next fight and that is scary, worrying. It can take up to a year to get over something like that and the only way to do that is to be brave and almost reckless, throw yourself straight back into it.

You won't put your chin out at first in sparring and as soon as you do get caught again, you start evaluating everything and start thinking 'am I chinny?'. But you have to get that straight out of your mind and although it sounds stupid and reckless, if you do leave your chin out there and take a couple of shots, it instils condidence and belief. Buy any fighter in the world, once he's been KO'd will worry about that first shot in the first fight back.

JIM WATT: Every fighter thinks he might get beat one day and it has happened to Ricky. I was the same but thankfully I didn't get knocked out (I was stopped on cuts), but Ricky is the same as all of us - he's a fighter. And if a fighter can only cope with winning, he's not a real fighter. Let's not forget he got knocked out by the best fighter in the world either!

It's a pity he got knocked out, but join the club Ricky, because better fighters than him have been KO'd before; Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, Alexis Arguello... he's in good company. He might have been wiped out by Mayweather but what has happened in the past doesn't really matter, it's all about what's in front of him. I don't see any problems in that respect, he will have digested what happened last time, and I really don't think there are any problems with his temperament.

NICKY PIPER: Ricky's no fool, he knows the person he lost to was a big welterweight and the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. If it was anybody else there might be question marks against him coming into this one, but there is no disgrace in losing to Floyd Mayweather.

Some boxers take defeat positively, some are affected, but I can't see Ricky being worried. It's an intruiging question and he won't know for sure until that first punch lands and sometimes fighters do just lose it, but Ricky was just knocked out by accuracy and accumulation and the fact that he was jumping into that punch. He won't get as cleanly as that by anyone again, certainly not Lazcano.

Last time we asked the panel if Ricky needs to put on a performance or whether the win alone will be enough.

Click here to read what they had to say