On the day Ricky Hatton posed by the pool in Las Vegas after his defeat to Manny Pacquiao, Greg Page was laid to rest in Louisville.
Hatton has yet to tell us whether he plans to fight on. The message inherent in the funeral of the former heavyweight champ should be sufficient to make up any veteran fighter’s mind.
Page, 50, died 12 days ago in his sleep from complications arising from his loss to journeyman Dale Crowe in 2001.
Ten rounds into a fight for which he was paid just ?1,000, Page hit the canvas. He didn’t get up.
The medical provision at ringside in Erlanger, Kentucky, was inadequate. Page eventually made it to hospital, where he had a stroke and fell into a coma.
He remained partially paralysed for the remainder of his life and required constant care until the end.
Page won the heavyweight title in 1984 beating Gerrie Coetzee in South Africa. He surrendered the WBA belt months later to Tony Tubbs in his first defence.
Page was a stellar athlete in his youth, and sparred with Muhammad Ali at just 15.
This was not the end he had envisaged for himself.
Like many before and since Page gave in to the yearning to go one more time. At 42 he thought he had enough in the tank to take Crowe down.
Riddick Bowe turns 42 in August and is still active.
After claiming in a court case against his wife that he was suffering from dementia he feels it is OK to fight on. Two weeks before Christmas he inflicted a 12th defeat on one Gene Pukall in Germany.
Where is the glory in that? It is 16 years since he suffered his only career loss in the second of the trilogy with Evander Holyfield. Those were the days when he could fight.
Hatton has had 47 bouts, two more than Bowe. Though only 30 that makes him veteran enough.
