Manny Pacquiao-Mario Barrios: When boxing comebacks go badly wrong

Manny Pacquiao will be bidding to roll back the years when he takes on Mario Barrios for the WBC welterweight title on Saturday night.

The Filipino legend won his first world title in 1998 and went on to claim belts in eight different weight divisions.

But he is now 46 years of age and there are concerns he may have bitten off more than he can chew this time.

Comebacks in boxing are nothing new, with fighters often missing the thrill of the spotlight and performing retirement U-turns.

Some returns have been successful, but they can also go badly wrong. Let’s look at five boxers who may have wished they never stepped back into the squared circle as Pacquiao prepares to end his four-year hiatus.

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Sugar Ray Leonard

Leonard is an example of a fighter who also made a successful comeback when he returned from three years away from the sport to beat middleweight king Marvin Hagler in 1987.

He opted to fight on for another four years before retiring again after losing on points to Terry Norris.

There was no shame in losing to a high-quality operator in Norris and that should have been it for Leonard.

But he was lured back to the ring six years after the Norris defeat to face Hector Camacho.

At nearly 41, Leonard looked a shadow of his former self and was stopped in the fifth round, the only knockout loss in his professional career.

Hatton was Britain’s most popular fighter of the 2000s, taking an army of fans with him wherever he went.

He picked up some incredible wins along the way, beating the likes of Kostya Tszyu and Jose Luis Castillo, but he fell short against Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.

The Pacquiao defeat was a devastating one as Hatton was knocked out cold inside two rounds, and he walked away from the sport afterwards.

But he did not want that to be the final memory of him inside the ring, and he returned in November 2012 to face Ukraine’s Vyacheslav Senchenko.

At his best, Hatton would have dealt with Senchenko, but his body just would not do what it once could.

He slowed down considerably as the fight went on and was eventually stopped by a brutal body shot in the ninth round in front his adoring Manchester fans.

Hatton recently announced that he is planning another comeback later this year in Dubai, and his loyal following will hope it goes a lot better than the Senchenko fight.

Tyson was known as the ‘Baddest Man on the Planet’ during his remarkable rise in the second half of the 1980s.

He is one of the most fearsome punchers the sport has ever seen and had many of his opponents beaten before the first bell rang.

But he was a shell of himself when he lost to little-known Irish fighter Kevin McBride in 2005 and wisely retired in the aftermath of that loss.

It came as a shock when he announced he would be making a comeback last year to take on YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul.

Tyson suffered health issues that caused the bout to be delayed but it eventually went ahead in November.

He had looked impressive on the pads in training, but once he got into the ring on fight night it was a different story. The 58-year-old looked slow and cumbersome as Paul picked him off at ease to earn a points victory.

Tyson later revealed he had almost died earlier in the year, confirming that he never really should have been in the ring with Paul that night.

Haye insisted throughout his career that he was here for a good time, not a long time. The plan was to get in, win world titles and make plenty of money, and then leave the sport for good.

He seemed to be executing that to the tee when he won cruiserweight and heavyweight gold to become a two-division champion.

But a loss to Wladimir Klitschko put a spanner in the works. He subsequently won a grudge match with Derek Chisora and retired in 2012, but there was always a feeling that he had an itch to scratch and it was not a major surprise when he returned to boxing in 2016.

Haye picked up two wins against very limited opposition before being called out by Tony Bellew.

Bellew openly admits that he is less talented than Haye but he fancied beating that version of his British rival.

The first fight went disastrously for Haye as he suffered a serious injury to his Achilles and limped around the ring for several rounds before being stopped in the 11th.

A rematch was scheduled for the following year and went even worse as Bellew knocked out Haye inside five rounds to send him back into retirement.

Holyfield was involved in some of the most iconic fights of the 1990s as he faced Tyson and Lennox Lewis twice each.

He kept going well into the 2000s and came very close to becoming the oldest heavyweight champion ever when he lost a majority decision to Nikolai Valuev in 2008 at the age of 46.

A knockout win over Brian Nielsen in 2011 appeared to signal the end of his career, but Holyfield agreed to come back to face former UFC star Vitor Belfort in an exhibition bout a decade later.

At 58, Holyfield was in no condition to be fighting someone almost 15 years younger than him, and it was no surprise that Belfort stopped him in the first round.

Thankfully, Holyfield has not been back in the ring since.

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