From HITMAN to FUNNYMAN
He scaled the heights in the ring then hit rock bottom with drugs, depression and suicide attempts, but now things are looking up again. Trainer, father, stand-up ...
After a brush with oblivion, Ricky Hatton now has a whole new lease of life
RICKY HATTON is dancing across a stage at the Royal British Legion in Halton, near Runcorn. He is throwing punches as he goes. Faces from the audience stare up at him. ‘I hit him with a left hook and then a big right and then an upper cut,’ Hatton is saying, ‘and he still wouldn’t go down.’
And he keeps coming forward, moving and ducking and throwing those punches at the thin air in front of him, simulating his fight with Ben Tackie in 2003. Tackie had a granite chin. He was impervious to everything Hatton threw at him. So still Hatton dances across the stage and throws the punches.
And the 300 people who have come to see him talk are up on their feet, clapping and cheering and singing his name, just like they did when Hatton was the king of the world. Hatton grins and moves forward again and throws another combination.
Always forward. Always swinging. Like that night at the MEN Arena in June 2005 when he walked on to punch after punch from Kostya Tszyu and kept on coming until Tszyu was overwhelmed by his indefatigability and quit on his stool. Hatton won the lightwelterweight world title that night. It was probably the greatest night of his career. No one who was there will ever forget it.
A couple of hours earlier, Hatton is sitting in a back room at the Halton Legion. There is a raucous mix of laughter and chatter coming from the bar. Hatton has come to talk about his glory days and the fights against Tackie, Tszyu, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, the last of those ending with a second-round knockout. Some people come for the nostalgia, some because they have heard Hatton is a good after-dinner speaker.
Hatton gazes around the back room. There are some marks on the wall where it looks as if a small cabinet has fallen from its fastenings. A sink skulks in the far corner, next to a worn brown leather sofa and a formica-topped table. It is a far cry from the bright lights of Las Vegas. Hatton looks over at his friend and manager, Paul Speak. ‘F*** the MGM Grand,’ he says, smiling. Hatton sits in an armchair. People come and go. Everyone wants something from him. An autograph. A picture. He signs some golden gloves for prizes in the auction. He never refuses a request. Life has not been easy for him since he retired. Manchester has new fight heroes now.
Ant Crolla fought Jorge Linares for the WBA lightweight title last night in the arena that once belonged to Hatton. Hatton says he is happier now than he has been for some time but he does not pretend life without the roar is not difficult.
‘I miss it every day,’ he says. ‘I find it hard going to the big fights. The roars. I don’t like it. It upsets me. It depresses me. I don’t want to sound like a broken record but you want those days when it’s you in the ring to last forever. Sometimes, it’s really hard for me to keep things steady.
‘When a big fight comes along, that is when it is hard for me. That’s why you won’t see me at many big fights. At the Manchester Arena, when the crowd roars, it cripples me. In some ways, it is the worst feeling in the world when you are in that tunnel before the fight and the crowd is waiting for you to come out into the arena. But when it’s gone, you look back and think it was the best feeling.
‘It’s like you’re stood on the edge of the world and you’re looking over the edge. When I was top of the bill, you used to have a ring entrance where you’d be in the tunnel and
Blue Moon would start up and you would walk out. You would be in there on your own in the dark in this little tunnel watching your opponent walk to the ring. I would be in there and I used to think every time: “What the f*** am I doing this for?” It’s that bit of fear I miss now.’
Someone else comes into the room. He is holding a painting of Hatton, his head back, his mouth open in a yell of triumph at the moment he beat Jose Luis Castillo in Vegas in June 2007 (pictured far right). ‘Some people call it The Scream,’ says Hatton.
Hatton, 38, is the same as he ever was: generous, trusting and without artifice. Fame and success did not spoil him or corrupt him. But nor did it leave him untouched. People he trusted and loved betrayed him and the end of his brilliant career plunged him deep into depression. He speaks openly now about mental health issues.
He was close to his parents, Ray and Carol, but they no longer talk. They all still live in Hyde, near Stockport, and, now and again, Hatton will see them in their car, driving the other way. They see each other sometimes at amateur boxing shows when Hatton’s son, Campbell, is in the ring but they do not exchange a word.
‘I’ve been told many times that you’ve only got one mum and dad,’ says Hatton, ‘and I don’t wish them any harm. My dad knows what went on and I know what went on and I can’t elaborate. But if you know me, it must have been something pretty bad for me to dig my heels in.’
That schism hurt him more than any punch. ‘When I fell out with my mum and dad,’ he adds, ‘that sent me to the darkest place. I just cannot forgive them. As time goes on, you learn to live with it.’
It coincided with the end of his career and loss of the drug of public adulation. Together, they felled him.
Hatton had problems with other drugs. He was the subject of a front-page expose. He attempted suicide.
‘I felt like a fraud,’ he says. ‘I felt I had let everyone down. I was very poorly. I couldn’t kill myself, so I thought I would drink myself to death.’
Those days have gone now. The birth of his daughters, Millie, six, and Fearne, three, have been a big factor in his improvement. So, too, has his role as a trainer for a group of fighters who box at the state-of-the-art gym he owns in Hyde.
One of his fighters, Kazakhstan’s Zhanat Zhakiyanov, won the WBA bantamweight title in Ohio last month, to become the first world champion trained by him. Hatton is optimistic about the prospects of several more. He is still vulnerable but he is better than he was. He is fighting back.
And he is still an entertainer. He likes the crowds. He likes these gigs. It doesn’t have the grim poignancy of Robert de Niro playing Jake LaMotta, reading doggerel at the end of
Raging Bull. There is something about this night. ‘These are the people who used to watch me fight,’ he says. It is explanation enough.
He still feels a bond with them. This is what he wants. He has never chased celebrity. He does not want to go into the Jungle or the Big Brother house. He does not like red carpets. That is one of his great gifts: he knows who he is. And he has never tried to be anybody else. Some things have changed around him. They
I do get down. I have depression. It has been upsetting but I am in a better position to cope now
are not as constant as him. He used to drink in The New Inn, on Mottram Road. Photographers would follow him there after his fights and take pictures of him in the pub’s s*** T-shirt contests. Flats were built on the site a few years ago.
Much of the rest of the scaffolding of his life is still there. He likes his old friends, old haunts and his old ways. He plays football for the veterans’ team at his new local, the Harehill Tavern, on Sundays. He plays in a darts league for the pub every other Monday. He goes to watch his team, Manchester City. He has a beer with his mates.
Fighters fight and often they look uncomfortable and unnaturally confined by civilian clothes. Life is often a lot more complicated outside the ring. Inside it, at least you know who your opponent is. Outside it, working out another man’s moves is a lot more difficult.
Hatton has been through that and come out the other side. He has just parted from his long-term partner, Jennifer Dooley, the mother of his daughters, but he has not fallen apart again. He sees it as a sign of real progress.
‘Me and Jennifer split, which was a bad one,’ he says. ‘It’s not as if it was a sudden thing or one of us had done something wrong. I know people were thinking: “F***ing hell, I hope Rick doesn’t go off on one again” and I haven’t.
‘I get down. I have depression. When things go wrong, splitting up with my missus of 11 years, two kids... it has been upsetting and I have been down but I am in a better position to cope now. It might have finished me off a few years ago.’
So this is the Legion and not the MGM Grand or
the Manchester Arena but there is a lot of affection for Hatton here. When he walks out on to the stage 300 people break into a chorus. ‘One Ricky Hatton,’ they sing, ‘there’s only one Ricky Hatton, walking along, singing his song, walking in a Hatton wonderland.’
Hatton makes fun of himself during his routine. He’s always been a master at that. When opponents mocked his weight fluctuations, he dressed up in a rubber suit and called himself ‘Ricky Fatton’. It’s the same now. ‘I can’t guarantee you are going to laugh,’ says Hatton as he stares out at the audience, ‘but I can guarantee it will last longer than the Pacquiao fight.’
He introduces himself as ‘Ricky Hatton, fresh out of rehab’. He swigs now and then from a bottle of beer. ‘One of my first fights was against this guy,’ he says, ‘when we were at the weigh-in, he was covered in tattoos. I didn’t know whether to fight or read him.’
The audience loves Hatton’s routine because they love him and they know that he loves them. ‘Roberto Duran was my favourite fighter of all time,’ he says as he ends. ‘My philosophy as a fighter was: “You pay your money to watch me. I am going to go out there and entertain you”. I have had a very up and down life. I have had disasters. I tried to kill myself several times. But my kids are healthy and I’m thankful for that. ‘One of the best things that happened to me in my life was the support of the fans.’ The audience erupts. Hatton takes his bow and walks off. A week later, he is back at his gym, working with Nathan Gorman, an unbeaten heavyweight prospect. The camaraderie has helped him in his recovery. ‘I have never been happier than I am now,’ he says. ‘Now and again, I have a wobble. But I am seeing my kids develop. My little lad boxes now. He’s 16 years old. He is not on the street corner being a pest. He is respectable, he is in the gym, he is turning into a fine young man and I’m proud of him. ‘You see how my girls are developing. Fearne is talking quite fluently and they have got the little Hatton character, witty and a good sense of humour. I’ve got lots of things to be happy about.’