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Just found this: http://www.rickyhitmanhatton.com/for...ay;threadid=17 quite interesting..
An Evening with Ricky Hatton and Nicky Piper
It doesn’t come any better than celebrating your Birthday in the company of one of your favourite fighters, and apart from Roy Jones Jnr and Oscar De La Hoya turning up, the night was as perfect as I could of possibly imagined.
My better half and myself arrived in Newcastle for the Boxing dinner at around 8pm, and as usual we turned up late, nothing new there then. The first course had actually already been served, and we made our way to our table only to find our seats had been taken too.
Luckily for us though, Paul and Ricky had noticed us walking in and waved us over to their table, after a brief chat and exchanging of pleasantries, Paul using his charismatic prowess, managed to fix us up on a table elsewhere, and we finally took our seats.
It wasn’t long before the main ‘Dish of the Day’ was served in the form the dynamic duo ‘Ricky and Nicky’, that’s Hatton and Piper respectively.
Nicky opened the show with the type of comedy genius rarely encountered within the boxing fraternity, he had his audience eating out of his ‘light heavyweight’ hand so to speak, with a barrage of quick fire jokes mixed in amongst some great personal career memories of yesteryear.
The former Commonwealth lightweight heavyweight champion as well as three times World Title Challenger held his own with the type of jokes you wouldn’t normally associate with the affable and highly intelligent, now Sky Sports pundit
He told us about the time he attended a boxing function at an old peoples home, he remarked ‘My jokes weren’t particularly funny that night but needless to say everybody still pissed their self.’
He also joked about the two Ex. Welsh heavyweight boxers with Alzheimer’s disease sitting together on a Cardiff beach.
An Ice cream van approached and one boxer said to the other ‘I’d love an ice-cream, for which the other replied ‘me too’.
As the 1st boxer wandered towards the ice-cream van the 2nd boxer called out ‘Can you get me an ice-cream with strawberry sauce please?’
The 1st boxer replied ‘Yes, no problem ’ and continued walking towards the van.
He’d only taken a few steps when the 2nd boxer hollered ‘… and can you get me a flake in that too please?’
The 1st boxer again replied ‘Yes, no problem,’ and he tries to memorize the order, he mutters ‘an ice-cream with strawberry sauce and a flake’ under his breath as he continues to walk in the direction of the ice-cream van.
He hadn’t taken another two steps when once again the 2nd boxer bellows out ‘ …and can you get me some hundreds and thousands on top of that too please?’
The 1st boxer again replies ‘Yep, ok, no problem’, as he once again repeats in his head ‘…an ice-cream with strawberry sauce and a flake, with some hundreds and thousands on top’.
Five minutes later the 1st boxer returns with a bag of chips.
As the 2nd boxer remarks ‘ Where the bloody hell is my pie?’.
(Now that was some funny **** ‘Mr Piper’)
After countless more hilarious jokes, to many to mention here, Nicky proceeded to tell us about the battle he won with Chris Eubanks. Not as you would naturally assume within the ring, but outside it, I will explain.
It appears that at this one particular boxing function Chris had asked this beautiful young lady if she’d like a drink, the lady politely declined. Later the same night Nicky offered forth the same kind gesture to the lady in question, for which she politely replied ‘ Yes’. It wasn’t long after, and the very same lady became Mrs Nicky Piper.
A moral victory for Nicky in which he took great pleasure in recalling.
And then he remarked about his biggest regret, he told us about the time he fought Leeonzer Barber for the WBO Light-Heavyweight World Title. He told us how he began to get complacent in the so-called ‘Championship Rounds’.
He stated ‘ I was winning comfortably on the cards, ten rounds gone and I started to get a little ****y, I stop concentrating and even waived at a member of my family within the crowd.
He went on ‘At the end of the tenth and unbeknown to me the ref had gone over to Barbers corner and told them he was giving him one more round due to the state of his severely battered and bloodied eye. Barber came out for the 11th and the next thing I know I was picking myself up off the deck and my World title dream had gone in an instant, and I had no-one but myself to blame’.
Nicky also told us how he had Dariusz Michalczewski seriously worried in their encounter, he said ‘Dariusz was terrified, terrified that he’d killed me’.
After Nicky had finished his formidable repertoire, it was the turn of the ‘Chunky little fellow from Hyde’, our own, Ricky ‘The Hitman’ Hatton.
Now Ricky must have been only to aware that he needed to be on top form in the wit department in order to surpass the benchmark of comedy genius set by his partner in crime for the evening, Mr Nicky Piper.
But they don’t come any quicker or funnier than Rick, and what ensured was pure Ricky Hatton, class personified.
He began telling us about his early amateur career and one time in particular when he actually went 7 months without being able to get a fight, simply due to the fact he was such a frightening prospect with a fantastic record on his amateur medical card.
Ricky went on to say ‘… So my trainer at the time and really good friend of mine Paul Dunn of Sale West ABC mentioned to me that there was an Irish boxing club coming over for a show, and that he’d try and get me a fight with one of their guys.
Ricky continued ‘ …So I thought great, the night of the show came and sure enough there was a kid my weight within the Irish contingent. Paul told me to sit down on this chair in the corner, cross my legs, fold my arms and put his pair of glasses on. So I sat there like he’d asked me too, glasses and all, wondering what the hell was going on.
Ricky went on ‘… Then over came the trainer of the Irish lad I’d been paired with and said (In an Irish-Manc accent) ‘ So then, where’s this Ricky boy’s medical card, referring to Ricky’s amateur record. Paul then passed him my card to read and he turned round and said ‘ Bloody hell, we are not fighting this kid so were not’.
He then paused for a moment and remarked ‘ So where is this young Hatton boy then anyway?’ Paul then pointed to me in the corner with my crossed legs, arms folded, and sporting Paul’s own glasses.
The Irish trainer looked me up and down and turned back to Paul Dunn and said ‘Hell, why not, we’ll fight this kid so we will’.
Ricky went on to say ‘ …and anyway I knocked the kid out in the first round.’
Just goes to show, always expect the unexpected, and never, ever, judge a book by its cover, unless it has naked women on the front of course.
So even then when his schoolboy looks were befitting of his age, Ricky was just as devastating a fighter then, as he is today.
Ian Darke, Sky Sports premier boxing commentator, put it best when he said ‘ He may look like a choirboy, but put him into the ring and he turns into a absolute monster.’
Cont....
An Evening with Ricky Hatton and Nicky Piper
It doesn’t come any better than celebrating your Birthday in the company of one of your favourite fighters, and apart from Roy Jones Jnr and Oscar De La Hoya turning up, the night was as perfect as I could of possibly imagined.
My better half and myself arrived in Newcastle for the Boxing dinner at around 8pm, and as usual we turned up late, nothing new there then. The first course had actually already been served, and we made our way to our table only to find our seats had been taken too.
Luckily for us though, Paul and Ricky had noticed us walking in and waved us over to their table, after a brief chat and exchanging of pleasantries, Paul using his charismatic prowess, managed to fix us up on a table elsewhere, and we finally took our seats.
It wasn’t long before the main ‘Dish of the Day’ was served in the form the dynamic duo ‘Ricky and Nicky’, that’s Hatton and Piper respectively.
Nicky opened the show with the type of comedy genius rarely encountered within the boxing fraternity, he had his audience eating out of his ‘light heavyweight’ hand so to speak, with a barrage of quick fire jokes mixed in amongst some great personal career memories of yesteryear.
The former Commonwealth lightweight heavyweight champion as well as three times World Title Challenger held his own with the type of jokes you wouldn’t normally associate with the affable and highly intelligent, now Sky Sports pundit
He told us about the time he attended a boxing function at an old peoples home, he remarked ‘My jokes weren’t particularly funny that night but needless to say everybody still pissed their self.’
He also joked about the two Ex. Welsh heavyweight boxers with Alzheimer’s disease sitting together on a Cardiff beach.
An Ice cream van approached and one boxer said to the other ‘I’d love an ice-cream, for which the other replied ‘me too’.
As the 1st boxer wandered towards the ice-cream van the 2nd boxer called out ‘Can you get me an ice-cream with strawberry sauce please?’
The 1st boxer replied ‘Yes, no problem ’ and continued walking towards the van.
He’d only taken a few steps when the 2nd boxer hollered ‘… and can you get me a flake in that too please?’
The 1st boxer again replied ‘Yes, no problem,’ and he tries to memorize the order, he mutters ‘an ice-cream with strawberry sauce and a flake’ under his breath as he continues to walk in the direction of the ice-cream van.
He hadn’t taken another two steps when once again the 2nd boxer bellows out ‘ …and can you get me some hundreds and thousands on top of that too please?’
The 1st boxer again replies ‘Yep, ok, no problem’, as he once again repeats in his head ‘…an ice-cream with strawberry sauce and a flake, with some hundreds and thousands on top’.
Five minutes later the 1st boxer returns with a bag of chips.
As the 2nd boxer remarks ‘ Where the bloody hell is my pie?’.
(Now that was some funny **** ‘Mr Piper’)
After countless more hilarious jokes, to many to mention here, Nicky proceeded to tell us about the battle he won with Chris Eubanks. Not as you would naturally assume within the ring, but outside it, I will explain.
It appears that at this one particular boxing function Chris had asked this beautiful young lady if she’d like a drink, the lady politely declined. Later the same night Nicky offered forth the same kind gesture to the lady in question, for which she politely replied ‘ Yes’. It wasn’t long after, and the very same lady became Mrs Nicky Piper.
A moral victory for Nicky in which he took great pleasure in recalling.
And then he remarked about his biggest regret, he told us about the time he fought Leeonzer Barber for the WBO Light-Heavyweight World Title. He told us how he began to get complacent in the so-called ‘Championship Rounds’.
He stated ‘ I was winning comfortably on the cards, ten rounds gone and I started to get a little ****y, I stop concentrating and even waived at a member of my family within the crowd.
He went on ‘At the end of the tenth and unbeknown to me the ref had gone over to Barbers corner and told them he was giving him one more round due to the state of his severely battered and bloodied eye. Barber came out for the 11th and the next thing I know I was picking myself up off the deck and my World title dream had gone in an instant, and I had no-one but myself to blame’.
Nicky also told us how he had Dariusz Michalczewski seriously worried in their encounter, he said ‘Dariusz was terrified, terrified that he’d killed me’.
After Nicky had finished his formidable repertoire, it was the turn of the ‘Chunky little fellow from Hyde’, our own, Ricky ‘The Hitman’ Hatton.
Now Ricky must have been only to aware that he needed to be on top form in the wit department in order to surpass the benchmark of comedy genius set by his partner in crime for the evening, Mr Nicky Piper.
But they don’t come any quicker or funnier than Rick, and what ensured was pure Ricky Hatton, class personified.
He began telling us about his early amateur career and one time in particular when he actually went 7 months without being able to get a fight, simply due to the fact he was such a frightening prospect with a fantastic record on his amateur medical card.
Ricky went on to say ‘… So my trainer at the time and really good friend of mine Paul Dunn of Sale West ABC mentioned to me that there was an Irish boxing club coming over for a show, and that he’d try and get me a fight with one of their guys.
Ricky continued ‘ …So I thought great, the night of the show came and sure enough there was a kid my weight within the Irish contingent. Paul told me to sit down on this chair in the corner, cross my legs, fold my arms and put his pair of glasses on. So I sat there like he’d asked me too, glasses and all, wondering what the hell was going on.
Ricky went on ‘… Then over came the trainer of the Irish lad I’d been paired with and said (In an Irish-Manc accent) ‘ So then, where’s this Ricky boy’s medical card, referring to Ricky’s amateur record. Paul then passed him my card to read and he turned round and said ‘ Bloody hell, we are not fighting this kid so were not’.
He then paused for a moment and remarked ‘ So where is this young Hatton boy then anyway?’ Paul then pointed to me in the corner with my crossed legs, arms folded, and sporting Paul’s own glasses.
The Irish trainer looked me up and down and turned back to Paul Dunn and said ‘Hell, why not, we’ll fight this kid so we will’.
Ricky went on to say ‘ …and anyway I knocked the kid out in the first round.’
Just goes to show, always expect the unexpected, and never, ever, judge a book by its cover, unless it has naked women on the front of course.
So even then when his schoolboy looks were befitting of his age, Ricky was just as devastating a fighter then, as he is today.
Ian Darke, Sky Sports premier boxing commentator, put it best when he said ‘ He may look like a choirboy, but put him into the ring and he turns into a absolute monster.’
Cont....
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