Making a comeback is among the most emotive phrases in sport. Usually it happens when a sports personality is either broke or bored, and, more often than not, it all ends in tears – or jeers.

Boxing faces the unwelcome prospect of two self-inflicted black eyes in the coming fortnight. On Saturday (November 24) night Manchester's MEN Arena will be rocking to the roars of "There's Only One Ricky Hatton" as the hubris-fuelled 34-year-old Hitman makes what many consider an ill-advised return to the ring against a former world champion, the Ukrainian Viacheslav Senchenko.

He does not need the money – he is reputed to be worth £26 million ($41 million/€32 million) after a career that saw him become arguably Britain's most idolised and best-supported world champion.

What he does need is the restoration of his pride and dignity following devastating defeats by Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, and personal redemption after plunging to the depths of despair which saw him succumb to drink, drugs, binge-eating and brought him to the brink of suicide.

But most of all he misses the roar of the crowd.


Six days later the same venue will witness another comeback with the ring debut of cricket legend Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff, also 34, as a novice heavyweight in an event even more consider a shameful exercise that cheapens the sport. The worrying possibility is that both Hatton and Flintoff could be seriously damaged, both having had to shed several stones in weight in a comparatively short time.

Of the two, Flintoff's sporting resurrection in a sport vastly more dangerous that the one which made him an icon is the more disturbing.

On the same night as he comes out fighting, 35 miles away in Liverpool a genuine heavyweight bout takes place with the British champion and former Olympic bronze medallist David Price, following his brutally brief encounter Audley Harrison, defending his title against seasoned slugger Matt Skelton who, like the giant Liverpudlian knows how to take care of himself.

But can Flintoff? "Car crash television," is how top promoter Frank Warren described the ex-cricketer's scheduled contest with American Richard Dawson, which like the British title fight, will be screened live by BoxNation.


Price is among those who fears for Flintoff. "What he is doing is disrespectful, to boxing, especially if it turns out to be a farce on the night," he tells us from his training camp in Portugal. "That would be a dreadful advert for the sport. I am sure he is taking it seriously – and he needs to. At least he seems to be in shape."

Flintoff retired from cricket because of injuries, including dodgy knees. So how can he be fit for boxing, which demands the ultimate in fitness and where knees are literally pivotal? "I remember my first amateur fight, I thought I was fit and about 20 seconds into the bout I realised I wasn't," says Price. "All the sparring in the world can't prepare you prepare you for the real thing.

"I'm just hope he doesn't get badly hurt. When that that first punch lands on his chin is when he'll know this isn't cricket.

"I wish him well but I can't see him making a career out of it. I think this is a one-off, a sideshow."

Actually, it is the focal point of a three-part Sky 1 documentary – From Lord's to the Ring – in which Flintoff reveals that in retirement he has battled similar demons to those which bedevilled Hatton.

Barry McGuigan, whom promotes the Manchester bill has been training Flintoff with his son Shane. "I'm not going to put him in with someone who's too good," he had promised.

So step forward a heavyweight from Hicksville. Dawson, 11 years younger than Flintoff at 23, is a 6ft 2in two-fight novice whom fights out of Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

He has won both his hometown contests this year, one by a first round stoppage, the other on points. They will box over three two-minute rounds.

"This is a stunt which should never be allowed to happen," argues Price's manager, Frank Maloney. "There are people around it who should know better. Giving Flintoff, who has no experienced of boxing a licence to fight a professional is a joke. It is nonsense, dangerous nonsense."

But McGuigan, who spearheaded a campaign for better safety measures when chairman of the Professional Boxers' Association, is confident Flintoff has acquired sufficient defensive skills to acquit himself capably. "I've never seen an athlete who is 34 years old train as hard and make that level of commitment. He understands how tough the sport is and his respect for boxers has gone through the roof."


Having agonised about giving Flintoff a licence, the last thing the Board of Control will want is a farce – or even worse cries of a "fix", with punches pulled or Dawson giving a passable impersonation of Tom Daley.

Hopefully he comes not looking for an easy payday but as a young American prospect who won't want his unbeaten record blemished by losing to the British equivalent of a retired Major League Baseball player.

He'll surely be trying, and as Price says, Flintoff ducking bouncers is one thing, avoiding big right-handers another.

Maybe the bookies have got it right, Ladbrokes making him 5-4 on to retire hurt.

Obviously, the born-again Hitman and the ex-Batsman will be amply rewarded for their endeavours.

But for my money, their respective comebacks are totally eclipsed by the astonishing achievement of a young putative British Olympian who is being described as "a walking miracle".


Last month Serita Shone pushed a bobsleigh for the first time since she broke her back in a terrifying 85mph crash in practice just a year ago which doctors feared would leave her paralysed for life.

Her return may have been confined to the dry push-start track at Bath University, but it highlighted the incredible recovery she has made a year after the accident at Winterberg in Germany where she was a novice brake-woman in a two-seater bobsled practicing for her first competition, the British championships.

In doing so, she has astounded her family, friends and medical experts.

Serita, 23, from Weymouth, was in a bob that flipped through the air, hit the roof of the tunnel and almost cut her in half as it smashed down on top of her.

She fractured her lower spine in two places, the L1 and L2 vertebrae, and was warned she might never walk again.

"If someone told me Serita would be back pushing a sled on the push track within a year, that would just never have been in the equation," says British Bobsleigh performance director Gary Anderson. "I walked into hospital in Germany and the doctors told me that Serita wouldn't walk again. I don't think they realised just how determined she is. What she has done is amazing."

She had to be airlifted to Marburg University where the skills of a surgeon, who performed two highly-complex operations on her spine five days apart, spared her from a future spent in a wheelchair.

Subsequently Serita has been working with physiotherapists since the turn of the year and was only allowed to start working with weights in June.

"I don't want to be defined by this," she says. "I want my defining moment to be an achievement in sport. The accident has made me who I am now, but I want to get back in the bob as a driver. My aim is to work my way up to being the number one ranked driver in Britain. Hopefully that will lead to the Olympic team and, one day, an Olympic medal."


A former heptathlete, Serita will continue to split her time training at the universities of Bath and Loughborough and there is a possibility she could make a return to an ice-track in early next year which means the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi remains a target.

"It is still an aim, but I've got to work very hard and keep improving to be in for a shout for that," she says.

"I'm still going to try, but I'm not oblivious to the fact that I need to be realistic and probably my long-term aim is 2018.

"If a spot for Sochi comes for me, then I'll quite happily take it and work my behind off to get there. I'm determined. I want to be the best I can be. I want to get back in the bob and prove that, rather than breaking me, it can make me."

We are now approaching the plethora of annual sports awards, and one of them is the prestigious Laureus international event, which includes a Comeback of the Year category.

No doubt, Hatton and Flintoff will be duly nominated should they survive their forthcoming bouts intact.

But my vote is going to this extraordinary ice maiden because her fight really is what I call a comeback, as well as an uplifting example of courage and determination that ranks high even in this most remarkable of sporting years.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.