LONDON - Ricky Hatton has revealed how close he came to suicide during his three-year break from boxing, as he prepares to relaunch his career with a fight next month.

The 34-year-old, who won world titles at both welterweight and light-welterweight, slipped into depression after a brutal second-round knockout by Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao in his last fight in May 2009.

He has revealed that, during the worst bouts of the illness, his girlfriend had to take a knife from him to stop him hurting himself.

"I was near to a nervous breakdown; depression, suicidal," he told BBC Radio Five Live on Sunday.

"Most mornings my girlfriend would have to come downstairs and take a knife out of my hand. I had a knife at my wrists, I was in a really bad way, just hysterically crying for no reason.

"I've always liked a little bit of a drink, but my drinking had gone way off the Richter scale. I was having blackouts.

"And even if I was stone cold sober, I was trying to kill myself."

Hatton will return to the ring against Vyacheslav Senchenko of Ukraine at the Manchester Evening News Arena on November 24.