Ricky Hatton on the coronation of his first world champion as a trainer
Zhakiyanov did things the hard way, and I could not be prouder
I’M delighted, it’s my first world champion. Zhanat’s been with me for a number of years now, I’m very, very proud. Zhanat’s come from absolutely nowhere, it’s not like he’s an Olympian or a national amateur champion, he’s a bit of an unheard-of and we made a world champion out of him. I’m absolutely delighted, it couldn’t happen to a better person.
He’s my yardstick in the gym for my novices in many ways. I say to all my novices, ‘if you want to be a world champion, you’ve got to do what this man does.’ He’s a great benchmark, if you like, for my youngsters. He’s absolutely brilliant.
The manner in which he did it, the two knockdowns in the first round, I thought ‘oh my lord.’ I knew there was absolutely no way Zhanat was going to match him for ability and speed. In my mind, it was like the Kostya Tszyu fight in many ways. Rau’shee Warren doesn’t have the power of Tszyu, but in the same breath he has the speed and boxing ability and I said that to Zhanat, ‘you’re not going to win this on talent and you’re not going to win this on speed, you’re going to win this on heart, determination, your fitness. Expect to lose a few of the early rounds but keep working, keep working, keep working and eventually you’ll get him in the home straight,’ and that’s exactly what happened.
Nothing prepared us for the first round though, he stood off and just while he was having a look he got pinged. I said ‘you can’t stand off at a distance because this fella will box your ears off. The best form of defence is attack.’ I think he broke his heart in the next few rounds, he went down in the first but then in the second, third and fourth rounds he flew at him and Warren must have thought ‘oh my god.’ I think he broke his heart.
I had to do my homework on Warren. I’m not one of these trainers who thinks it’s all about the trainer, it’s not, it’s about the fighter. The tactics worked up to say the eighth round and then once it got to round nine, sometimes I think trainers get too involved with the technical side of things, but the tactics worked up until then and I said to Zhanat ‘the tactics have worked but only you can win this now. You’ve got to dig deep and drag it out.’ The only tactic I gave him was to go and knock him out.
It’s very difficult when you’re a trainer and you can see the opposition absolutely floundering, legs going, absolutely tired and you see your own fighter having to suck it up. I said to him, ‘I can’t help you now. You’ve got to go out there and work.’ And he did down the home straight, he found that, and that’s what good champions do. They find that when they need to and I’m very proud of him.
Kazakhstan is the equivalent of Mexico in Europe in many ways. They’re very, very poor, they have nothing, they’re very hard people. This couldn’t happen to a better guy. Sometimes you might get given someone who’s won multiple titles as an amateur or been to the Olympics, you can pretty much guarantee they’ll have a good pro career, but who the hell’s heard of Zhanat Zhakiyanov? He’s a kid who’s come from no amateur pedigree to become a world champion and that’s what makes me feel very proud. It’s all about him, but I can’t think of many who have won multiple world titles, trained a world champion and promoted a world champion. From a personal point of view, I’m ticking the boxes.
The next step is to get all my fighters to the very top and get the best out of them. I learnt from the best in Billy Graham, I firmly believe that, and everything snowballs so hopefully this will be the first of many.