The inquest into Ricky Hatton’s death heard evidence in March 2026 that the former boxer had brain damage known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. At Manchester South Coroner’s Court, his former partner, Jennifer Dooley, said Hatton had been struggling with memory loss before his death and needed help planning his calendar.

Dooley’s account put a sharp human detail behind a condition that is often discussed in medical terms but is usually hidden until after death. She said, in effect, that before he died the former world champion was losing track of everyday life in ways close to home, even as he was due to return to the ring later in 2026 in an eight round contest in Dubai.

The hearing matters now because Hatton’s death has reopened a difficult argument that boxing has never fully settled: how much damage the sport can absorb before the cost becomes impossible to ignore. The discussion is not abstract. It is tied to one name, one inquest and one family’s testimony about what changed before the end.

That is where Dr Nitin Sethi’s evidence comes in. Sethi, a neurologist, ringside physician and chief medical officer for the New York State Athletic Commission, said the definitive diagnosis of CTE is only made after death by examining the brain under a microscope. He said there is no biomarker in blood, bone or spinal fluid that can confirm it in a living person, though doctors can suspect it from clinical symptoms and signs.

Sethi said those signs may include slurred speech, a shuffling gait, mood changes, behaviour changes, anger issues and disinhibition. He also said families often have to be the ones who speak up first, volunteering concerns about memory, speech or walking before a neurologist can assess the person more conclusively. That places an uncomfortable burden on the people closest to fighters: they are often the first to see something wrong, but rarely the ones able to fix it.

Dooley’s testimony and Sethi’s explanation land together because they show the same problem from opposite sides. One is personal and immediate; the other is clinical and final. Between them sits the reality that CTE can be suspected in life, but it cannot be proven until after death, and that makes prevention, monitoring and honest disclosure more important than any diagnosis that comes too late.

For Hatton, the inquest has done more than establish a medical finding. It has turned his last months into a warning about what fighters, families and the sport itself may miss until the damage is already done.