By Terence Dooley (Photo by Loura Conerney)
Through a 38-fight unbeaten streak Britain’s Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton had to endure the slings and arrows of outraged criticism. A British phenomenon with a huge and unblemished record? Must be a mixture of hype and good matchmaking said the naysayers amongst the boxing literati, umpteen defences of Hatton’s largely inconsequential WBU title further evidenced this apparent reticence by the Hitman to take out a contract on a live opponent.
However last June those days of scepticism were served notice as Hatton stuck to Kostya Tszyu like glue and battered the P4P legend into semi-retirement. A few attempts were made to pour cold-water scepticism on the fire that was now raging around boxing’s hottest property but it was to no avail. You could not paint Tszyu as an old man before the bout and the only reason people declared him aged after the bout was because Ricky had put the Australian based Russian through an aging experience in Manchester.
Now Hatton is about to hit the USA and spread the word there, they say life begins at 40 and Ricky Hatton is clear that this is going to be the start of his legacy building, he is not satisfied with domestic dominance, not satisfied with a huge win over Tszyu and seemingly not satisfied with the fact that his win over Carlos Maussa made Hatton the main man at 140lbs; Hatton wants more and he is going out of his way to get it. WBA welterweight boss Luis Collazo will be standing firm to derail Hatton and the signs are good for a decent fight.
I had sat dumbfounded as Ricky Hatton punched out a win over my idol Kostya Tszyu, my jaw must have hit the ground three times over when Tszyu was retired on his stool, so how did the man in the opposing corner feel.
“It was funny because I wasn’t even looking (at Tszyu) I had my head over the bucket, Billy was putting water over my head, I always set a fast pace but against Tszyu I had to go quicker than normal so he didn’t line me up for that right hand. Billy asked me if I had one more round so I said ‘f**king right I have! Get that ice on my head!’ Billy then said it was over and I just slid off my stool. I didn’t have the strength to celebrate,” said Hatton.
Tszyu had given one-hundred percent but on the night Hatton had dug deep and responded with one-hundred and ten percent. People who say Tszyu was aging forgot his win over Sharmba Mitchell, they forgot that this man had trained diligently for most of his career and as the fight progressed they overlooked the fact that Tszyu was showing off his new and improved left hook by catching Ricky flush with it during the middle rounds.
In short it was forgotten that Tszyu fought like the Tszyu we knew yet Hatton marched him down and took years off his boxing clock. So was there a “this is the top of the mountain” feeling.
“People say that will be the fight I’m remembered for but I’m still only 27 and that’s the age when you start coming into your prime…it might be hard to improve on but great champions have that attitude that they can improve…as far as legacies go if I thought ‘I’m not going to top that’ what would I fight for? It would be easier to say I’ve done it all but I haven’t topped the bill at MSG or Las Vegas, I (also) want to be a two-weight world champion, climb the P4P rankings and fight Floyd Mayweather. At the minute I’m not quite satisfied with what I’ve done.”
Hatton wears his man of the people mantle well and I admit that I was a person who wondered whether this was a clever PR construction designed to sell tickets. It seemed that this was not the case, the nice guy image was not designed to shift tickets but was rather the basis on which the ticket sales has been built. So what did the step into boxing superstardom mean for Ricky, he was now a celebrity after all.
“Nah. People say I’m not big headed but should you be praised for that? It just comes natural and that is down to my family and a good group of mates, the team I have around me now is the same team I had when I turned professional. I laugh when people say I’m a celebrity…I’d rather not be classed as a celebrity, to be a celebrity years ago you had to achieve something now anyone can be a celebrity. If I could win all the belts and make a living for me and my family with no one knowing me I’d be happy.”
One factor that has been absent from the making of Hatton has been terrestrial TV exposure here in the UK, he has been brought along on Sky and when Frank Warren left Sky for ITV Ricky stayed behind. Men like Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank became huge stars and cult figures via terrestrial TV.
“People ask about me not being on terrestrial TV but what difference would that have had other than make me more well known, if I can achieve what I want without people knowing me then that is fine. I want the recognition as a boxer but I don’t want the celebrity stuff, I like to keep it simple you know? After I beat Tszyu people wanted to put a celebratory dinner on but I said ‘no.’ I went to my local pub to celebrate with the people who had been there since day one, I wanted to be with my pals. When people come up to me and call me Mr Hatton I’m surprised.”
As mentioned the Tszyu fight rocketed Ricky into a different boxing league, for a fighter who is legendary for his love of socialising the celebration afterwards must have been legendary and there is a story about him including some Texan tourists in one of his nights out.
“Funnily enough I was in a bar. I’m sat there and Kerry goes to the bar and looks up and there are these two big fellas from Texas with big hats and winkle pickers on, you don’t see many of them about in Manchester so he asked them where they were from. They said they had come all the way from Texas to watch THE fight Hatton-Tszyu, and had been trying to find Ricky Hatton and couldn’t find me so Kerry pointed me out to them. Anyway they came over and they were going ‘Oh my god we can’t believe this, it’s the Hitman!’ so I said ‘steady on lads’ and we all had a drink together.”
When a boxer adopts a fight hard and party hard strategy the results can be blow-ups in weight between fights and people have latched onto this aspect of Hatton’s career, pre-Tszyu the nickname Ricky Fatton did the rounds based on a photo of him posing with UK comic Bernard Manning wearing very little and looking overweight, was that a mistake in terms of PR.
“A lot was made about my photo in the papers with Bernard Manning and it was just one of those things, I mean I’m the least vain person you could meet and it was done for a laugh but there is a time to have a joke and a time to be serious. I never knew what the photo was going to be used for and I was a fortnight away from being that little bit more solid.”
Ricky managed to cope during the period after the big win over Maussa, which was Christmas, a time when fighters traditionally gain weight:
“Everyone was commenting over Christmas that I looked like I hadn’t put on much weight. Bear in mind that I had a long lay-off but was not as big as usual, it was six months since the Maussa fight including Christmas so you’d expect me to be larger than life but Michael Gomez had a fight and trained over Christmas, Matthew Macklin was training and Matthew (Hatton) fought in Monaco so I was doing a little bit here and a little bit there to plus supporting the lads when they fought. I did go out over Christmas and took the lads from the gym out. I’m doing alright out of it (boxing) I suppose and it’s a team effort so as a treat for a good year we out to the “Jolly Boys Outing” put on by Steve Woods. It was in between Christmas and New Year so I pity anyone who boxes then!”
Ricky also extends this support system to his dressing room before a fight highlighting the difference in pre-fight preparation between himself and someone like Lennox Lewis.
“I’m not superstitious, nothing is written in stone with me I do as I please and just don’t want any fuss, I like the same people around me and in the changing room before the fight. I’ve had the same mates since childhood and they come to the changing room before I fight, sometimes they stagger to the changing room, some fighters like the changing room to be like a cemetery before a fight but I like it to be like a nuthouse with the music blaring and people shouting at me and willing me on. Me and Billy have been in training for 12 weeks so what is there left to say apart form the odd whisper in the ear? In the changing room I am the way I am now and it is like a zoo with music and all my mates telling me to do it (win) and when the bell goes I’m like a lunatic and aggressive. Some boxers need reassuring but I don’t need that our game plan is set in stone over the twelve weeks of training. Billy says ‘you know what you have to do’ and that’s how we prepare.”
However it was clear from the way he tore out versus Carlos Maussa, and in the process suffered a badly lacerated eye, that for that fight events outside the ring had influenced his approach in the ring. Post-Tszyu Ricky had stunned everyone by not renegotiating his contract with Frank Warren. Warren had also stunned everyone by acknowledging that he had sent a contract for further fights in the post rather than working things out over a negotiating table. Recriminations flew, Ray Hatton (Ricky’s father and manager) was smeared in the press and Ricky went into the fight with Maussa beleaguered by legal problems plus with the British mainstream press accusing him of greed, the same press who had rejoiced in his title triumph. Asking if all this affected Ricky is a question one could probably answer for oneself, the question is to what extent did this affect Ricky.
“The Maussa fight was the most difficult time in my boxing life…it was a nightmare…the first couple of months were horrendous, stuff about my father in the papers…call me names but don’t call my father, that is in the past now…I’m excited but that is where I’ve got to be careful because in the past I’ve tried too hard to put a show on and left myself a little bit careless…with Maussa I had so much going on out of the ring I wanted to smack everyone on the chin, so much frustration was inside me.” In boxing we have seen fighters respond well inside the ring when life is tough outside it and Ricky boxed through a cut eye and the crazy style of Maussa to dump the Columbian with a stunning left hook to produce, probably the best, or one of them, one-shot KO Hatton has registered.
It was then a case of onwards and upwards and Ricky had a dream that he wanted to fulfil, a headlining slot in the USA.
“It is a big thing to top the bill in your own country let alone the United States and if people told me year ago I’d be a world champion, selling out arena’s here in a matter of hours, topping a bill in the United States and signing for HBO as two world Champion and going for my third title in as many fights I’d never have believed it, even to this day I chuckle to myself about it. I remember when there wasn’t as many at my fights as there are at my press conferences. And there is plenty more to come, I’m only 27 so will be coming to my best.”
Still it must be a wrench for him to leave behind the Manchester venue he graced many times, the MEN, and all the fans who came out to support him for fight after fight.
“It will be hard to beat Manchester because its more like a football match when you fight in England…for Tszyu it was bedlam at two in the morning! Biggest ever crowds at the MEN as well and it sold out in as few hours not even Rod Stewart and U2 sold it out quicker…I still get the tape out and think I can’t believe I did that…I believe Warren has signed the MEN arena up so if I do fight in Manchester it will be a the City of Manchester Stadium against a big name, it would take some filling.”
As a fan of boxing one name that I think would fill any venue if you put it with Ricky Hatton is Diego Corrales (provided he beats, this time in a fair fight, Castillo):
“If he beats Castillo I’d fight Corrales, you want to fight the winners don’t you, but it has got to be next summer provided Diego keeps winning it will have to be one of those big names.”
Another name Hatton is interested in is Miguel Cotto.
“Cotto is probably going to move up in weight, then again a lot of the top lads are at welter so he might kill himself to stay there (light-welter) and clean up. To be honest how he is struggling at the weight training in Puerto Rico is beyond me, you want to come here and train in minus 2 degrees mate.”
Hatton would love to land a bout with IBF welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather, but doubts Flody will come over to face him.
“Floyd, I think, won’t come over, he said he would before I fought Kostya Tszyu then went all quiet when he saw I wasn’t that bad after all. I’d like to fight Gatti; he is a warrior and a similar type to me.” As long as Gatti rebuilds and keeps winning it could be a big fight and an interesting comparison fight, but what about Floyd, is it going to happen or will it be another fight that withered on the vine: “It’s going to happen, it’s a done deal as long as we both keep winning…a lot of people wanted me to fight Mayweather straight away but I’d not boxed in America for years and no one had seen me live apart from on TV so let them see me in the flesh and make the fight even bigger than it is now…I’ve just signed with Dennis Hobson, I had the problems with Frank Warren and have just signed with HBO so why rush…I want to consolidate first…and work towards it…I insisted on this fight just like I insisted on Tszyu.”
“It wasn’t a brilliant performance (when Mayweather beat Judah) but beating Zab Judah is a great win. As a rival you don’t sit there thinking ‘he is great’…Zab lost it as much as Floyd won it…that knock down should have been scored…by the halfway stage it was pretty even, may have only been a round in it and it was like Zab Judah thought ‘I’m happy with that’ and threw 9-10 punches a round! He lost it as much as Floyd won it. Floyd is a class act and showed something different, body punches came into his fight this time. Floyd has a lot of speed but my view is this, I can’t speak anymore highly about him, in the ring he deserves to be P4P at the minute but he beat Corrales when Diego was killing himself and other guys have stood in front of him, if you stand off him, like Gatti did, you are asking for trouble, Zab gave ground and Sharmba Mitchell had seen better days, the only person who remotely pushed him close is Castillo who took it to him. Don’t stand off him and give him time to think about things. Castillo didn’t give him time to think about what he was doing.”
Hatton respects Floyd the fighter, but what about Floyd the man? Mayweather is known for his machismo and it came out when the two of them met at the Jermain Taylor-Bernard Hopkins fight.
“I was sat about 4 rows back and Mayweather was on the same row as me about 6-7 seats away, there was no camera’s so I went over and said ‘nice to meet you Floyd’ but he started pointing and all that and saying he wouldn’t shake my hand so I said ‘Floyd no need to be all angry I came over to say nice to meet you’ and he said he’d only shake my hand after he’d beat me, so I told him to f**k off! A lot of people in boxing do this when the press and cameras are there but there was only me and him there so he doesn’t just do it for the cameras he really is a f**king dick!”
To be fair Floyd is generally respectful when he’s fought a guy but his new and improved image took a blow when Mayweather bumped into Sugar Ray Leonard and Hatton could not understand the reception the legend Ray got from Floyd.
“I hear he spoke to Ray Leonard and told him he respected him but he was better than him, you cant get lower than saying that to one of the best guys in boxing, even if you think it you don’t say it!”
So if all roads lead to Floyd and a super fight, you can see why Hatton took the Collazo fight in America and at welterweight, but is it all a big risk and is there danger that the occasion will get to Hatton is the real question.
“I’m excited about topping my first US bill but am trying not to let it get to me. It is another fight and another opponent so I can’t let the occasion get to me but I am excited about it. I believe I can take on any style of fighter but different style causes a different problem, Collazo is tricky and awkward and could make me look bad but ultimately it is about coming away with the “W.’ With each exciting performance my stock keeps going up so this fight is important.”
British fans have generally been good travellers when our guys fight abroad, even in World Cup year 2002 a lot of fans turned out to support Lennox as he finally put to sleep the myth of Mike Tyson, and Ricky is hoping for good support from his fans.
“Hopefully hundreds of my fans will be in the USA, the British fans always show fantastic support for their fighters abroad and its been long overdue so the fans will know that. I think you’ll be surprised by how many have gone over there.” He also compares them to the fans from Mexico whom he saw first hand at a fight he says was one of the most memorable he’d seen in the flesh, the rematch between Barrera and Morales: “The Barrera-Morales fight was the best live fight I’d seen, 2nd fight, I don’t what it is but those Mexicans are fucking crazy, there was fireworks in the ring and fireworks outside the ring, they went crazy.”
It is hoped that the British fans can create a big swell of noise for him in Boston and make it more like a home fight than a pressure filled U.S. invasion against a very tough and accomplished fighter in Luis Collazo.
Collazo is seems quietly confident that he has too much for Hatton and Ricky acknowledge it was a tough fight to take. There has also been the usual circus in regards of outside the ring issues with almost daily questions about whether the WBA title would be up for grabs. Hatton says he will be ready for whatever Collazo brings to the ring.
“Collazo is very versatile and can box in the move, he is very, very quick and likes to rope a dope a bit in close the way Winky Wright does by tucking his elbows in but I can get around him and throw hooks, uppercuts, short and long shots, I can cover the distance and my best work is up close but I feel I can do some damage at a distance as well. At this level you can’t go full steam ahead against someone like Collazo but I think my boxing ability is underrated and I haven’t shown that in my last few fights because it wasn’t the right tactics. I think my boxing ability will surprise him, I’ve been sparring for a month now and I’ve been sparring southpaws so it has gone fantastic. Billy is happy with what he’s seen, our pad work isn’t like conventional pad work he doesn’t just stand there in range and get me to throw shots so its more like a spar than actual pad work. I do less sparring than most fighters and get less wear and tear, some fighters do 5 days a week training and 12 round sparring sessions but that is miles on the clock and a full fight before the fight...the most we’ll ever do is 8 rounds sparring.”
As the time wound down Ricky talked about how he first got into boxing via the sport of kickboxing.
“I wanted to be kick boxer after watching Bruce Lee films when I was a kid but I wasn’t good with my feet. I was good at punching so I went to the boxing gym and started from there…it was pretty obvious I was good with my fists and not my feet…I was getting my head kicked in because I couldn’t get near the other guy, I was trying to punch them and they was kicking the hell out of me…it was a pretty good decision (switching to boxing).”
Over the ten days I had spent at the Phoenix gym Ricky had looked excellent in training and was carrying the extra weight well, it was not fleshy weight but rather solidly built muscle that bodes well for his foray into welterweight. Fighting in a classic division in front of a new public ready to take his style to heart means Ricky should produce a good showing and given his sparring sessions I fancy Hatton to overcome a few scares early on before finding the range on Collazo and finishing the fight, possibly with another big left hand, somewhere around the seventh or eighth round.
This bill also features the continuing development of Matthew Hatton, viewers are getting two Hatton’s for the price of one and not wanting to be left out I caught up with Matthew Hatton after one of his training sessions to ask him a few questions.
First and foremost I wanted his thoughts on his last fight versus Alexander Abramenko in Monaco.
“It was one of my best performances even though I have beat better men, I won every minute of every round and every punch and combination was coming off. Everything has been getting better with each fight but I feel I made a big jump in my last fight and am definitely one of the most improved fighters in the UK.”
In that case, with an improving career and Dennis Hobson providing decent fights, does Matthew see himself as a player in the future of the British welterweight scene.
“My career is definitely at welterweight it is the best division for me. We’ve got some good fighters there in the UK, the division is wide open at the minute and there is no stand out fighter so I feel ready to box anyone out there now. I want the British title now and I feel ready to make that step. If it was offered to me now I’d take it.”
Matthew had suffered a bad patch in 2002 and it had spilled over into 2003, 2 losses and a draw in the span of 7 fights.
“I’m not the person to make excuses but I did have some bad luck. The decision loss to David Kirk was a terrible decision, everyone thought I’d won it but you get bad decisions in boxing, then I was stopped on a cut in a fight I was controlling but these things happen in boxing…I still have the confidence of an unbeaten fighter because in my eyes I didn’t deserve to lose any of them fights. It sickened me at the time but I have come back after tasting defeat and I’m more determined not to taste defeat again, it has made me a better fighter.”
From Monaco to the USA in two fights, he is excited about his U.S. debut.
“I can’t wait for my US fight. I’ve fought in Monaco and now a fight in the States. I’ve not boxed in America before so to be part of this fight feels great, it’s going to be on Sky as well so it will be interesting.”
This represents a new market for Matthew to tap and he is on a good run of form, a great UK match-up with Ali Nuumbembe could be on the horizon also, I wanted to know what he attributed to the recent improvement in his performances.
“I’m improving in all areas but in strength definitely, training with Kerry Kayes has left me stronger so I’m developing my own style now and my movement and defensive is getting better so everything is improving. I was offered the Ali fight but it was under 4 weeks notice and I’d had this fight scheduled. I couldn’t turn down a fight in America but if I didn’t have the fight in America I’d have took Ali on but fighting in Boston in front of 16,000 people was too big a chance to turn down, if it is offered to me again I’ll take the Ali fight.”
“I’m improving in all areas but in strength I can definitely see a difference, training with Kerry Kayes has left me stronger and I’m developing my own style now, my movement and defensive is getting better so everything is improving. I just hope that the U.S. public like my fight and enjoys what I can do.”