By Michael Scully

Copyright irishmirror

Ireland’s Olympic gold medallist Michael Carruth has described Ricky Hatton as an “absolute legend” of the ring after the former world champion’s shock death at the age of 46.

Hatton’s body was found at his home in Hyde, Greater Manchester on Sunday morning and Carruth has added his tribute to the many that have flowed in across the boxing world since the sad news was announced.

The Dubliner explained how he came to know Hatton. “Ricky signed with Frank Warren, and I was with Frank Warren,” he told RTÉ Radio 1. “So when I was at the end of my career, he was coming into his career.

“And we kind of hooked up a lot of times and did a little bit of training together. He was a good friend of Wayne McCullough as well, and he went out to Wayne’s gym in Los Angeles and trained over there for a while as well.

“So yeah, he was friendly with the two of us. He was friendly with everybody, he was a lovely person, I wouldn’t say anything bad about him.”

Hatton, an International Boxing Hall of Famer, had well documented mental health struggles after retiring from the ring for the second time after a comeback fight against Vyacheslav Senchenko in 2012.

“He took up boxing at a very young age, like most of us do, and he then had nothing outside of boxing in that regard,” Carruth said. “So he kind of went into a bit of a slumber, and people are saying how he died and things like that, I just don’t want to hear about it.

“He was an absolute legend at the game for his country and for his family and for his club and every other part of boxing. He was always nice to people – apart from getting in the ring with them. So with that, it’s just a huge, huge loss to the boxing world.

“He’s a bit of a messer, who isn’t? But what a career and those three defeats, two of them were by Floyd Mayweather, and one was by Manny Pacquiao – two of the greatest fighters in the world ever. To be beaten by that calibre (of boxer) is huge for his career as well. It was a great career.

“He was a bit of a devil in between fights because he would go over a lot overweight. Some of us would only go a stone overweight. I think a stone is hard to lose, but he was losing two and three, sometimes maybe four stone before fights. Yeah, he was making it tough on himself.”

‘The Hitman’ had announced plans for another comeback fight in Dubai in December having participated in a no-scoring exhibition with Mexico’s Marco Antonio Barrera three years ago.

“You’re retired from professional boxing at that weight at around 27, 28, you can’t be going back into a ring at 47,” said Carruth. “I don’t know why he was thinking in that regard.

“Thank God he never had to deal with that because he was probably going to be fighting younger men. I don’t even know who the potential opponent was, but 47, there’s no way you’re going to do that.”