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Ricky Hatton shows off dramatic three-month weight loss ahead of exhibition with Marco Antonio Barrera

Ricky Hatton has once again dropped a bunch of weight before a fight, just like old times.

Ricky Hatton has once again dropped a bunch of weight before a fight, just like old times
Ricky Hatton has once again dropped a bunch of weight before a fight, just like old times
Photo by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images
Scott Christ is the managing editor of Bad Left Hook and has been covering boxing for SB Nation since 2006.

Ricky Hatton is just under a month away from an exhibition bout with Marco Antonio Barrera in Manchester, England, and took to social media to show off the amount of weight he’s lost since March.

Here’s a look at Hatton’s change over three months:

It’s a pretty stunning transformation over three months, but not one all that unfamiliar to longtime fans of the man lovingly nicknamed “Ricky Fatton” for the way he’d routinely gain weight between fights.

Hatton, now 43, had his greatest success at 140 lbs, winning the lineal championship from Kostya Tszyu in 2005. He did win a WBA belt at welterweight, too, and had the biggest fight of his career at that weight, when he went to Las Vegas to face Floyd Mayweather in 2007, bringing with him an army of the rowdiest, loudest, and drunkest boxing fans to ever step foot on American soil.

Hatton retired after a crushing knockout loss back at 140 against Manny Pacquiao in 2009, but returned in 2012 to face Vyacheslav Senchenko at welterweight, where he was stopped on a body shot in the ninth round and hung up the gloves for good, retiring with a record of 45-3 (32 KO).

Barrera, 48, hasn’t fought since 2011, and most haven’t seen him fight since 2009, when he was in Manchester and got dominated at 135 lbs — well over his best weight, and old — by Amir Khan. The last major fight where he was really competitive came in 2007, when he lost a decision to Juan Manuel Marquez, and later that year he lost for a second time to Manny Pacquiao. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2017.

To be exceedingly clear, this is not a sanctioned fight, this is not going to be a full speed fight. It likely will be something close to what we saw with Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr, or the Julio Cesar Chavez Sr and Jorge Arce exhibitions, where they do plenty enough to entertain. It will be fun for fans to get to see two legends get in there and show out a bit, and it’s for a good cause.

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