Ricky Hatton Discusses Several Emotional Topics on Life, Career
By Terence Dooley
Former light-welterweight world Champion and WBA welterweight titlist Ricky Hatton will speak with typical openness and honesty about his career, struggles with depression and more when he appears on the Claire Balding show on Thursday night. The interview will be aired on BT Sport 2, with Hatton covering a range of subjects during the chat.
The Manchester-based fan favourite was given the question that many boxers face when asked who inspired him into the sport.
“[P]eople ask you who’s your inspiration and there is a lot of inspirations that come to mind like Muhammed Ali because he stood for more than boxing and then Roberto Duran was my all-time hero and Nigel Benn was the person who actually got me into boxing,” he answered when speaking on The Clare Balding Show on BT Sport.
“But it’s normally, like you say, passed down through the family tree, either your father or grandfather or someone has done it but no one in the family ever did it so we’re a little bit puzzled as to where it actually come from, yes,”.
“I tell a lie actually, yes, it was Bruce Lee films but for the same reason I went to the gym to do kick-boxing. I just wanted to fight with someone! I like to think, I’m a laugh a minute, I’m a bubbly character. I don’t think I’m an aggressive person although I’m aggressive in the boxing ring, but not away from the ring. That’s why people might still like me I guess.”
When asked about his proudest moment, he named the world title win over Kostya Tszyu (W RTD 11) in June 2015 as well as superfights against Floyd Mayweather (L TKO 10) and Manny Pacquiao (L KO 2) before plumping for one of his many achievements outside the ring.
“My best win was Kostya Tszyu and when you look at Mayweather and Pacquiao, they will probably go down as two of the best of all time but my proudest achievement was my fan base, do you know what I mean?
“I’m not saying I’m the greatest British fighter of all time because I’m not, but I don’t think any of them, even my heroes like Big Frank and Nigel Benn, never had the following I had and that’s the proudest achievement I took into retirement.
“For Mayweather 30,000 went over (to Las Vegas) and then 15,000 for Malignaggi and 20,000 for the Pacquiao fight. That was unheard of and that’s the proudest achievement I brought out of the sport.”
Still, Hatton had some tough times. Following his retirement, he fell into a deep depression and made an unsuccessful comeback in 2012 (a ninth-round KO loss to Vyacheslav Senchenko) before deciding that his future lay in coaching. “It was terrible, yes,” admitted Hatton when speaking about those dark days.
“I had suffered from depression for quite some time and a lot of things were going wrong. I got beat by Mayweather and then I was back up. I fought Lazcano at City and I was back up. Then I fell out with my trainer, Billy Graham, he was my best mate so then I was down.
“Then I beat Pauly Malignaggi which was probably one of my best wins. Then I fell out with my parents. My mind was going up and down and for a short while there I didn’t care whether I lived or died. I tried killing myself several times but I had a good girlfriend behind me…[W]hen I look now, I got myself fit, I ended up making my comeback fight and now I actually train boxers and trying to bring the next champion we can be proud of through. It’s where I’ve come from and it is probably one of my best achievements because I was probably on the bottom rung of the ladder, yes.”
The spiral was arrested by the birth of his second child. The responsibilities of fatherhood were doubled in that moment so Hatton decided that his children would be his strength.
“I had a little girl,” he told Balding. “My little girl Millie, my second child, she come through and I think that was the best thing that happened to us because I held her in my hands and went: ‘Come on, get yourself together now’—I have never looked back since.”
Watch the full interview with Ricky Hatton on The Clare Balding Show on Thursday night from 8.00pm on BT Sport 2.
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