By Terence Dooley (photo by Loura Conerney)
Billy Graham, trainer of Ricky Hatton, talked to BoxingScene to inform us about the career of Ricky Hatton, the slings and arrows his fighter is taking in the press and his deeply-held views on the Floyd Mayweather fight as well as the progress of the up and coming Matthew Macklin. Billy was, as is usual when talking to his favourite US site, forthcoming in his views and in his defence of his charge, Hatton, against serial sniping from the press and some, so-called, fans who have been unfair on the ‘Hitman’.
Firstly, I spoke to Billy about the negative press surrounding the announcement of Ricky Hatton's next fight, the opponent was yet to be named as was the venue, title and other details (Urango in Atlanta for the IBF light-welterweight title at this time of writing). I asked Billy if he had been listening to the criticism heading Hatton's way.
“To be honest with you I haven't really listened to the press since Boston (the Luis Collazo fight) because I get a bit pissed off. I mean, it is never good enough. Ricky beat a legend in Kostya Tszyu, stopped him in fact, then he knocked out, and knocked out clean, Maussa who is really awkward and had just knocked out Vivian Harris and then Ricky moved up to welterweight and fought a really underrated southpaw and a great waiting to happen in Luis Collazo and he still gets negative vibes! If people knock the (proposed) Urango fight then I don't know how they can do that.”
“What can the kid (Hatton) do? He is going back down to his natural weight and fighting for his old title so what is the problem? The kid (Urango) is unbeaten and I don't know what Ricky has got to do to please people, he has had forty-one fights and one bad performance, in the Vilches fight, if you can even call it a bad performance. I wouldn't say he has even had many below par performances, there are only a few times he hasn't looked scintillating. He is fantastic for the sport and a gentleman yet he still gets knocked, if you are going to knock Ricky Hatton you are going to knock anybody, so I think “fuck it!” and get on with what we do best, and that is winning.”
I put it to Billy that a lot of the chat in boxing is that since Ricky left Frank Warren Hatton's career has lacked direction.
“Ha! Well that is just absolute nonsense. Look, the reason we left Frank Warren is because we can get vastly more money now for his (Ricky's) fights, pure and simple. We get paid a lot more money than we ever got off Frank Warren so what would you do? Or anyone in a career? What would Frank do? We want the even (marquee) fights because they generate the most money so we are not trying to avoid anyone.”
It is also said that Frank could have secured Ricky bigger fights than the ones he has had so far, how realistic it is to say that he would have got him Floyd Mayweather or a name of that ilk no one can say for sure. Did Billy think that Warren would have delivered a big fight after taking so long to make Hatton-Tszyu?
“I'm not going to knock Ricky's build-up, I'm not. We got Tszyu when we wanted Tszyu so I'm not going to knock the build-up; it is not easy to make fights. It is surprisingly difficult to make fights, even ones you think are easy to make. Everyone wants a lot of money and it is not as easy as people think. We want the best fighters out there.”
“If people are to judge Ricky fairly they will have to judge him correctly and hopefully say that he is one of the best fighters ever to come out of this country, if not the best. When his career is over I think he'll be judged the best fighter to come out of this country. There are a lot of people who make an awful lot of noise, a lot of (casual) fans who say a lot of tough stuff but half the time they don't know what they are talking about so how can I get worried about that? I get annoyed on Ricky's behalf to be honest with you but there are always a load of armchair critics who talk a load of bollocks so let them carry on talking it and we'll prove them wrong (as we did when Ricky beat Kostya).”
Despite the hammering Joe Calzaghe gave out to Jeff Lacy the best recent British performance was Hatton beating Tszyu. Kostya is an infinitely better fighter than Lacy and Hatton beat Kostya when Tszyu was coming off a good series of wins. Unfortunately the fight itself seems to have been revised and the triumph downplayed.
“The British press do tend to build people up and then try to pull them to pieces. All these top fighters, including Floyd Mayweather, have had lacklustre performances or been knocked out and stopped but they don't get knocked, they get accepted. There is never a knock against Arturo Gatti and rightly so, I admire the man and his fights, but he has lost plenty of fights. De La Hoya has been knocked out but they don't seem to care as much (in the US). If you are very talented you accept the fact that you will get judged harshly and scrutinised so you have to accept that but sometimes it does piss me off.”
In regards to the Mayweather fight it's difficult to see what more Hatton can do, he set himself up as number one in the light-welterweight division only to see Floyd jump up in weight. Ricky then followed Floyd up to welterweight only to see Floyd throw out a challenge too the durable but limited Baldomir. Now Floyd intends doing a jumping act again to face the, in my opinion, faded Oscar De La Hoya. Ricky and Floyd should be fighting one another whilst they are both young and highly-touted; Floyd is jumping about the weights cherry-picking fights. He is taking a short cut to greatness but Billy still believes the fight with Floyd will come.
“It is going to happen, they are on a collision course but we want it now. What is the point of waiting?”
Floyd himself is a very fine fighter yet he is not a scary Tyson type, if someone put forward the idea that Ricky was scared of Floyd what would the answer be?
“Ricky scared of Floyd? Let me tell you something. One, there isn't a fighter Ricky Hatton is scared off. Two, fear doesn't come into it when you put a pair of guys like that together. Fear? We are scared of it not happening but Floyd is the real thing and will want the fight itself so he has talked about it happening. Floyd is a good fighter, a classic fighter but he is not a scary fighter.”
He is very much into projecting a bad-boy ghetto personal though with the bling, furs and hip-hop image.
“Ghetto? Let me tell you something. I'm from the ghetto, you're from the ghetto. Do you think Floyd could walk about Manchester with a big fur coat and dripping with jewellery? He'd be stripped of the jewellery in five minutes flat!”
“It is a possibility that Floyd will jump to light-middleweight I just hope he doesn't make any kind of mistake because the styles (between Ricky and Floyd) will gel perfectly it will be like Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran and the kind of fight the boxing public likes to see and wants to see.”
I asked Billy what he thinks about the odd person on the internet, and the Boxrec forums, saying pretty tasteless things about him and Ricky on a personal level, would he advise the proper internet fans to ignore such ravings and also have patience in terms of the big fight?
“I'd say not only to take these rumours with a pinch of salt but also that the people spreading them are a bunch of fucking idiots.”
Billy is currently working hard to get light-middleweight Matthew Macklin (who is familiar to US readers and could one day face John Duddy, both fighters are exciting and have a solid Irish-descent fan-base in the USA) prepared for the Jamie Moore, British title, bout and insists to me repeatedly that Matthew is the next big star to emerge from his stable. I asked Billy what his impressions were when Matt walked through the gym door:
“I already knew him really, he’d been out with us at the after-fight parties and that so I knew him well. He is a boxing anorak to be honest with you; he goes all over watching fights and has been to plenty of gyms in America. I was friendly with Matt he boxed on some of Ricky’s shows and he is a made for TV fighter so I’d seen a fair bit of him. I was impressed, he excited me and I knew he had a lot of ability but he wasn’t getting the best from himself.”
“What impressed me was that when I started working with him he improved at a rate that I’d not seen before, with the exception of Ricky Hatton. It was just up, up, up for Ricky and Matthew is exactly the same plus he is incredibly ambitious and wants to be a Champion and a world-Champion fighter. That is his goal. That rubs off on the coach as well because when someone is as ambitious as that it gives you energy, if someone is not that interested you get tired quicker and can’t get motivated with them but Macklin is not like that. You can see him getting better and the speed of his thinking and his attitude impresses me.”
In conversation it becomes clear that Matt is a very intelligent guy, he reads boxing articles voraciously and it is not often you see a fighter and trainer in the ring discussing how boxing articles draw on tertiary sources in much the way history books do. Does this innate intellect transfer into the ring:
“It is a massive help, honestly, they used to go on years ago about fighters being thick but I’ve found it the complete opposite. Matthew is an educated kid, some kids are just bright but he is educated and is very clever and smart.”
“The dialogue you talked about is a massive factor and I try to get that relationship with every fighter I work with. You can be in tune with some guys more than others and I have it with Ricky. Since he was a young kid we’d discuss every aspect of boxing and I have that with Macklin so we are really in tune. This is a dramatic help in the corner and Matthew comes on every time (he fights). We phone each other about boxing and talk about it all the time. People can’t stand it when they are near us.”
Billy also got Matthew up to speed with his boxing philosophies by showing him tales of old fighters and asking Matthew to beg, borrow and steal little bits of boxing knowledge from them. Although he stressed that he did not, as is widely reported, get Matt watching Joe Louis for help with footwork. He got Macklin to watch Joe for a lesson in finishing a guy when you have him hurt:
“The Joe Louis thing wasn’t about Macklin’s footwork. Joe Louis is one of the best finishers I’ve ever seen and he delivered every punch with leverage so that is why I got him to watch Joe Louis, and other fighters too, not to copy from them but to steal things from them. I tell them what to look out for and what will help them as fighters. Joe Louis was punch perfect when he finished a man.”
“Matthew is settled into his style now; we know what suits him best. When you first start training a fighter you have to see what he can do naturally and adjust things and add things. It is like building something. Matthew is a predator and I like that, he looks for KO’s but can also box well. He can box going backwards now as well.”
First up came the balance and as we watched Matthew spar Billy told me he found it easy to take Matthew’s balance at first but he was now on solid foundations and his balance was much better:
“Balance is a genetic thing but you can work on it, I don’t even know how to explain it but you work on pose and anticipation, they are the things I admire in a fighter but can’t always put into words. I’m really big on balance and when I take on a fighter I tell them that I won’t ask them to do anything I can’t explain to them and that is why I talk to them as I’m working with them in the ring. That is where you put it into words and it is really exciting to work like that. I do wish I’d had Matt from the start in one way but I’m glad also that he looked around and went to all those gyms in the States and has seen everybody but then picked me. I think he made the right decision though in picking me!”
Matthew Macklin has been around the block in his short career; he has located to the USA and found the best sparring he could over there in a move that is unusual for a British fighter. Walking into a new gym is hard, going to another country and stepping into gyms such as the Wildcard gym must be harder still, this speaks a strong testimony about Matt’s desire:
“To walk into those tough gyms shows that Matt is ambitious for himself to find the best for himself and he thinks that is here, and I think he is right. Matthew is made for me as a fighter. If he hadn’t looked around he might be here and still looking.”
For Matthew the search is over, his home is now the Phoenix and the true acid test awaits him versus Jamie Moore in late-September. As Macklin prepares for his biggest test Ricky Hatton waits for his destiny showdown with Floyd Mayweather and the world now knows that in the Hatton camp there is no fear of the Pretty Boy.
