War and PeaceMy Story

by Ricky Hatton

  I went to console Kostya and we spoke to one another for a while. It is a blur now but there was plenty of mutual respect and that never changed, although our paths haven’t really crossed in the years since the fight.

  I grabbed the microphone. ‘Manchester!’ I shouted, ‘I always said I would be number one . . . You and me, we did it together tonight.’ I announced that if I could be half the champion Kostya Tszyu was, I would be very proud. Then Kostya took the microphone. He was emotional and did not commit to fighting again but said he lost to the better fighter. ‘There’s no shame for me to say this,’ he added, ‘I’d planned a lot of things for this fight but today he was better than me everywhere. If Ricky needs any help or support from me, I will always be here for him.’

  ‘Blue Moon’ started playing and it was time to party. I was the IBF light-welterweight champion of the world and life would never be the same again.

  It was chaos in the changing room and even Russell Crowe, a big boxing fan who was there to cheer on his countryman, came in to congratulate me. By the time we finished the press conference it was 4 a.m. and then there was an after-fight party at the Renaissance in Deansgate. The drink flowed freely for several hours. When I left the hotel to get a taxi it was half past nine, ten o’clock in the morning, and there were still people walking up and down the street singing, ‘There’s only one Ricky Hatton.’ You would have thought we’d won the World Cup. People were clambering up lamp posts at ten in the morning.

  Kostya was staying at a hotel in Bolton and, because it was such a draining and demanding fight, I said to Paul Speak I wanted to see him before he flew home, I wanted to make sure he was okay. Kostya came down to meet me and his jaw was swollen like a grapefruit, it was horrendous. I probably stunk of booze, like I did when we first met in Las Vegas all those years ago, when I told him that I was a fringe contender who might fight him one day. He was a really nice guy. You don’t make fighters like that. Our night in Manchester will link us forever and I’m proud of that.

  It’s not often fighters like Kostya Tszyu fight in England, boxing a Mancunian in Manchester. It was a big occasion for the country but also for Manchester. The revenue it attracted for bars, restaurants and shopping must have been incredible. Lots of people come up to me, even today, and say, ‘Oh, Ricky. The best night I ever had in my life was the night you beat Kostya Tszyu.’ ‘The best night of your life?’ I reply. ‘What do you think it meant to me?’ Kostya Tszyu never fought again and five years later, when he became eligible, he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame at the first time of asking.

  I don’t think he ever spoke to his trainer, Johnny Lewis, again, after he pulled him out of the fight. I’ve watched it back many times and in one network’s version of it, where they had microphones in the corner, Johnny was saying, ‘No more, Kostya. No more.’ Kostya was shaking his head – I don’t know if he was saying ‘No more’ or ‘Don’t stop it’. There were a couple of Russian guys in his corner and Johnny was saying, ‘No, no, no. I’m the chief second. I’m stopping the fight.’ I could see people trying to pass Tszyu a drink, saying, ‘Come on, Kostya. You’re all right. One more round.’

  Johnny shouted, ‘No!’ You could see Johnny loved him; he absolutely loved him. When we were at the weigh-in Johnny made a point of coming up to me and Billy and saying good luck to both of the fighters. ‘The most important thing is no one gets hurt,’ he said. He loved his fighters. He loved Kostya and a couple of guys there with the spit bucket, who were saying he could go on, wouldn’t have known him as well as Johnny Lewis did. It was a gruelling, hard fight. For these people who say Kostya quit on his stool – and he’s had a bit of stick for it over the years – I think they’re a disgrace because the fight, the pace and the punishment was brutal. You have to take your hat off to him.

  After I had retired years later I heard whispers that they wanted a rematch but there was nothing after the fight. I don’t think they had a back-up plan on the night. I’m not sure we did. I don’t think I did. Me and Billy were just convinced that what we were going to do would work. Boxing, using your jab and trading jabs with him, would have left me in the firing line for that right hand. He was a distance fighter with a jab and a right hand, not an up-close boxer. He was good at fighting on the inside but it was not his A-game.

  Victory took me to another level. I’ve never really been bothered by the fame, but I started going on things like Michael Parkinson’s chat show – who I presented with his own long pair of boxing trunks, like mine – and it was all a bit surreal. When they say the Tszyu fight is one of the best wins by a British fighter in a British ring, I have to pinch myself.

  A week afterwards – and with my face just coming to the end of the black and blue stage – my cousin Stephen had a birthday party in Manchester and I went with a couple of pals. Matthew was in training, so he wasn’t there, but his wife, Jenna, came with a friend of hers, Jennifer, and we got introduced. She and Jenna had been friends for years and although I had heard her name mentioned I never thought anything of it. She actually went to Mottram Primary School like I had and was two years below me.

  I took a fancy to Jennifer straight away. She was really pretty, good-looking, had a nice sense of humour and was fun to be with. After the party, Jenna and Jennifer left and we went to another club and they were there, so we got chatting again and then me and my friends went to a different place in Manchester, which was like a members-only place. I was a little bit tipsy and Jenna was already in there, chatting to her friends, but Jennifer had gone home. So I asked Jenna to call her and get her back; Jennifer was already in a taxi but she returned at my request. I thought there was half a chance, then!

  Jenna asked me if I liked her and she told me Jennifer liked me, and we ended up going out a couple of times. She knew I was a boxer through Jenna but she wasn’t like one of the girls who become all excited and said stuff like, ‘Oooo, you’re that boxer. Hiya,’ where I start wondering what people are after. On one of our first dates we went to the Walkabout in Manchester; she couldn’t believe how many people were asking for my autograph. People were asking for pictures and autographs and she said to me, ‘What are you again? A world champion? People like you, don’t they?’ At that time, ninety per cent of the girls that came up to me said, ‘Oh, you’re Ricky Hatton. That boxer off the telly.’ After a while, you see people coming a mile away. She didn’t even know me or how successful I was, and that was half the attraction.

  After a couple of weeks Jen came over to my house one day. She was in the living room while I put the kettle on, and there was a photo of me out of training with Campbell above the fireplace. It was taken in between fights a year or so earlier and I looked like a beached whale but, with this not being long after the Tszyu fight, the person in front of Jennifer was as solid as a rock. So when I came in she was looking at the picture and she said, ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Who’s that, you cheeky cow? That’s me and my son, Campbell.’

  She said, ‘You’re joking, what weight were you then?’

  To which I replied, ‘If you play your cards right and we’re still together in a few weeks that’s what you’ve got to put up with.’ I saw an opportunity and asked, ‘Do you still like me?’ She politely said she did. I took her to Marbella after five or six weeks; she was nervous about it because we hadn’t been together long, but we got on brilliantly and had a right laugh. We were on the same wavelength and just laughed and laughed.

  I’d won the fight of my life and met the girl of my dreams. Not a bad few weeks, eh?

  CHAPTER 7

  Made in America

  The cuts were really bad. It was two headbutts that did them – one over each eye – and WBA light-welterweight champion Carlos Maussa, a right pain in the arse, had a really disjointed style. I thought that referee Mickey Vann would step in and stop it at any second. This wasn’t really the follow-up performance to Kostya Tszyu I’d hoped for.

  Sometimes when you study your op
ponent you can read him in the ring. If he moves to the left, you know to bring your right elbow in or get your right hand up because you know a left hook is coming. Then, if he dips to the right, you know a right cross is coming. With Maussa you could forget that – he would dip to the left and throw a right hook, there was no manual or handbook to go with him. He was so difficult to read, very disorganized and so free with his head, and when you’re aggressive like me inevitably you clash heads. I walked onto his head a couple of times and he gave me two horrendous cuts for my troubles. As if it was not a tough enough job as it was for Mick Williamson . . .

  The cuts had me scared me to death. It was the first time I’d had two. Sure, I’d had plenty before but never two bad ones like that, and as the referee assessed me it made me a bit panicky. The thing was, I was winning a hard fight handily. I just couldn’t quite catch him flush because he was tall, rangy and he kept switching stances – with me being short there was always going to be trouble with the reach. It was frustrating not being able to hurt him, but I was slowing him down as the fight progressed, although not getting through as much as I would like to.

  I had been ringside to see him upset Vivian Harris, who I had been scouting, to win the WBA title on the Floyd Mayweather–Arturo Gatti card in Atlantic City in the summer, so I knew he was dangerous. This was his first defence and none of what that gangly fucker did was conventional. I don’t think even he knew what he was doing half the time, so there was no point me trying to second-guess him.

  Then, in the ninth round, I suppose I got that frustrated that I had not been able to nail him flush that I took a run-up as if to say ‘Fuck it’ and I flew at him with a left hook, and it was probably the hardest punch I ever threw. It’s a wonder he’s still not there now. I nailed him with a couple of right crosses. A right-hand lead landed, then another and then I gestured with the right hand and leapt in with the left hook, and he slumped to his knees.

  I thought he was badly hurt straight away. I had been getting closer for the last couple of rounds and was starting to pick him off a bit more and, as I thought there was less chance of me getting stopped due to the cuts because they weren’t getting any worse, I started to relax a bit more and I found the punches and measured him. He was as tough as they come and it would have taken something like that to stop him, and all credit to him. Not long after he hit the floor he put his hand on the second rope and I thought, ‘Fucking hell, he’s getting up. That’s it. If he gets up after that, I’m getting out!’ Thankfully he didn’t.

  That shot was all about the technique. When the time was right, I knew when to put everything behind a punch and it ended well – even though everything had come too close to backfiring for my liking.

  It was my first fight having parted company with Frank Warren and there was a lot of pressure on. I’d had a rough patch, I had two cuts, there was a fella who was awkward, switching, pulling away and rangy, and who was going to be tough to knock out anyway.

  I was upset about what was going on with Frank, although I tried to put that behind me by making light of it and coming to the ring to the old song, ‘Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now’. I was gutted that my split with him prompted a legal reaction and I made a statement with the song. When those cuts came it was right about that time when I thought, ‘Jesus Christ, you’re going to look a right dickhead if you don’t pull this off. I’ve made that statement and it’s all going wrong here. Two cuts. A right handful in front of me.’ So when I landed that punch you can only imagine the relief.

  I had no problem getting motivated in camp, even coming off the immense high of beating Tszyu. The dispute with Warren fuelled me big time and, as well as I was doing in my career, there were always critics, and there were still plenty out there. Having beaten Tszyu for the IBF title, I was now taking on Maussa for his WBA belt as I tried to unify the division. ‘Oh, he’s beaten Tszyu? That was a fluke.’ ‘He’s a one-hit wonder.’ There was no lack of motivation – I found that something extra to push myself through everything again. I’d fought so hard against Tszyu for the belts I wasn’t prepared to hand them over at the first time of asking.

  Life changed after the Tszyu fight, as I knew it would. Back then there had been time to go to Thailand on Manchester City’s pre-season tour, which, for want of a better expression, was a disaster. Stuart Pearce was the manager of City at the time – for the Maussa fight he actually carried my belt into the ring, and I was really pally with him. We got on very well; you wouldn’t believe that someone who was so aggressive and wore his heart on his sleeve when he played would be so quiet and softly spoken. I suppose I saw some of me in him and maybe he thought the same because I can be softly spoken, enjoy a laugh and a joke but, like ‘Psycho’ – as they used to call Stuart on the pitch – I could get nasty if I had to. The guys at Sky Sports would say they could see it in the changing rooms before my fights. Something just clicks and I mean business.

  I got invited to Stuart’s hotel and was having a drink and he was there with Tim Flowers – who was the goalkeeping coach at the time – and Stuart was having an absolute nightmare. Joey Barton had been in trouble when it emerged he’d been in an altercation with an Everton fan. Richard Dunne had tried to break up the melee and kicked a wall in frustration, injuring his foot. Joey was sent home, with a City spokesman left to say: ‘Richard Dunne sustained an injury to his foot in his attempts to restrain Joey Barton.’ Stuart was up against it. Aside from that, it was brilliant. You’d go to the bars and all the City fans were there with their shirts on and they were singing ‘There’s only one Ricky Hatton’ wherever I went. I loved the trip, and we were in a tournament with Bolton, Everton, City and the Thai team. It was brilliant and a welcome distraction from the Frank Warren claim.

  At the time, my dad handled all that stuff so I left it to him. All I knew was, ‘Frank’s suing me, he’s claiming he has a contract . . .’ I didn’t really know the ins and outs because I left that to my dad. It is understatement to say I never wanted to fall out with Frank. It was not pleasant, I was fond of Frank, I was still appreciative for what he did for me and he’s shown time after time that he knows how to bring fighters on and get them the right fights. Promoting is about securing fights at the right time, stepping up at the right time and making the right move at the right time; Frank was exceptional at doing it and I’ll forever be grateful for that.

  It was my belief that when I beat Kostya Tszyu I would see more ‘0’s on the end of any deal I was going to sign. I wasn’t convinced he really wanted me to take the Tszyu fight, though that’s only my opinion. When I got to the number one contender spot, I went and watched Man City in Frank’s box at Arsenal and he said that although I was the number one contender there were alternatives, like Vivian Harris and Sharmba Mitchell and that I didn’t have to fight Kostya Tszyu; but I said that was the one fight I wanted. I thought that if I signed to fight Kostya then Frank would get me to do an extension of my contract. That’s the way it works in the promotional game. ‘I’ve got you this opportunity, so sign for more fights.’ I never signed an extension.

  I think he thought I was going to get beat, and maybe that’s why we didn’t do an extension. Before, whenever my contract had twelve months left, he always asked me to extend. That was the first time, in all my years with him, he never got me to do it.

  I got the best payday of my career up to that point, but I thought I was worth more than what he offered me to carry on with him. Frank had said he had to pay big money to get Kostya Tszyu over here, that Tszyu had a massive entourage and we had to pay him to have the fight in Manchester and at the time that suited everyone. There’s a lot of sense in that, so that’s why he could only pay me what he did. ‘But when you win,’ Frank said, ‘that’s when things will really take off.’ I won but his offer did not match what I thought it would, based on previous conversations. That’s when I went speaking to other promoters, and what I was offered by them blew me away.

  We spoke to Main Events and Golden Boy
in the USA, but I ended up going with Dennis Hobson, a Sheffield promoter who had worked with IBF light-heavyweight champion Clinton Woods. He’d got Clinton some big fights against the likes of Roy Jones and the other leading fighters in his division. Sky Sports also came to me directly, as they knew my contract was up, and said they would pay me a certain amount per fight, and I thought, ‘Bloody hell, is that just on Sky?’ Not to mention my purses and everything else. We agreed a three-fight deal with Dennis and he paid me more than the others had offered, and the first bout of that deal was against Maussa at the Hallam FM Arena in Sheffield.

  Perhaps it would have been back at the MEN Arena in Manchester had Frank not signed an exclusive boxing deal with them so only he could promote fights in that venue.

  Bygones are bygones but it was very bitter with me and Frank. I was upset because I didn’t think the offer matched what he’d said and I resented him a bit for it. He also claimed that we’d had a verbal agreement. He had a column in the Sun, which people told me they called ‘The Ricky Hatton article’ because he just slagged me off. There was a lot of anger there. We ended up in court. It was a shame what happened because I genuinely got on really, really well with Frank. I was very fond of him, really liked him, but I just felt I was worth more than he was ready to offer.

  I can’t have any regrets with how things turned out for me; when you look at the purses I ended up getting when I went on alone, I genuinely don’t believe I would have got those purses had I been with anyone else. I’m sure I would have had a nice house, perhaps a nice boxing gym and a nice car, but I don’t think it would be as nice as what I have got.

  Again I was indebted to Mick Williamson against Maussa. He had become a good friend outside the ring, but on so many occasions he saved my bacon; once in America, then against Jon Thaxton, Vince Phillips and Carlos Maussa. They were all horrendous cuts. Sometimes you hear someone say in the corner when you’re watching boxing ‘That’s a bad cut’ but I’d had worse ones shaving. Some of mine were horrific but Mick never used to panic. He’d get straight in there and start putting real pressure on the wound. Some cutsmen just dab at them and I think, ‘Jeez, what are you doing?’ With the Maussa cuts I went to the hospital to get stitched up and they were going to give me a needle to numb the area. There was an after-fight party at the Hilton in Sheffield and they went to inject me and I said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Will I be able to have a pint after that?’