War and PeaceMy Story

by Ricky Hatton

  But after Senchenko landed that body shot in the ninth round, the night was turned on its head. The fans were pleading with me to stand up but I just thought, ‘I’m sorry guys, I can’t.’ I was trying to breathe in through my nose and gave it one last shot by trying to take breath with a big gulp with my mouth open.

  It was the worst thing I could have done, and when the referee Victor Loughlin waved it off I had to fall over on my side. The pain more than doubled. I just couldn’t get up. There was only about five seconds left in the round.

  It was heartbreaking; I couldn’t do anything about it. You could hear a pin drop initially, when the fans realized I would not beat the count and the fight was over. But moments later they were in unison, singing ‘There’s only one Ricky Hatton.’

  I draped my arms over the ropes, looked out disconsolately into the crowd and shook my head. Some kept on singing but near on 20,000 people had gone silent. Some looked stunned. There were people crying. If you’ve suffered with depression for years the last thing you want to see is people disappointed in you. I just broke into tears. Then I did an interview with TV, which I made a pig’s ear of, and the first thing I cried was: ‘I’m not a loser.’ I cringe to watch it back but I looked into the crowd and felt like apologizing again, saying: ‘I’m so sorry. I told you all I was going to come back and win another world title. I just couldn’t do it.’

  I had been beaten for the first time in England, let alone Manchester. For the first time, I had been defeated by someone who was not a pound-for-pound legend. I was thirty-four and talk of big British fights with Khan and Brook, of more huge nights in Las Vegas, of fighting my old victim Paulie Malignaggi, was silenced. (Malignaggi was ringside – he must have been the second most gutted man in the arena.) I cried. In front of all those people, I wept and there was nothing I could do to stop it, even though I tried to curl my lips upwards to fight my natural emotions.

  Even in my heyday I couldn’t have been any more prepared. But it doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside – it doesn’t reveal what’s on the inside. I might have looked perfect, but an X-ray reveals the damage you’ve done over time. And although I looked physically fit, I’d had a career of hard fights; even some of my six-rounders at the start of my career were tough because that’s how I boxed. I’d fought the best, I’d been up and down in weight, drinking, and then there were drugs in the bad patches, and you can’t tell what kind of damage all that had done. Round nine against Senchenko was when it all finally caught up with me.

  Having burned the candle at both ends – having lost nearly five stone to get back into fighting shape and after putting my body through hell to do it – I had to die by the sword, having lived by it. To get done with a body shot like that – that told me. From a boxing and technique point of view, I was done. But to lose to a body shot, it was just an acceptance that, ‘Yes, my body has given up on me now.’

  Everything in my heart before told me I was going to come back better than ever; a fighter knows when it’s not there any more, he just won’t always admit it.

  After the fight, I was in the vast dressing room with Jennifer and a handful of members of my team, and I looked into the huge, wide mirrors in the bowels of the Manchester Arena. My face was swollen and bumpy. The left-hand side was black, blue and purple and there were bulges over and under my eye, causing it to start closing. I didn’t say anything, but spent a few moments staring at the mess looking back at me, and I told my team I would be ready to see the media shortly. ‘It’s just not there any more,’ I thought to myself.

  Some of my team were saying, ‘Don’t make any hasty decisions at the press conference; you were winning the fight,’ and I had to interrupt and say, ‘Look at my face. Look at the state of me. How many times do my family have to see me like this, getting beat, getting knocked out?’

  Then I asked my director of boxing, Richard Poxon, ‘A few years ago, would I have walked through Senchenko?’ He said: ‘Ricky, in a heartbeat.’ What did that tell me? It was time to move on. ‘It’s just not there any more,’ I said to myself over and over. ‘I’ve found out now.’ That was that: there was peace, finally.

  This was more than a boxing match. Yes, I would have liked to have been a world champion again but ultimately I wanted to make people proud and, even though I ended up on my knees, I like to think I achieved that. The media who covered the fight twice gave me standing ovations at the post-fight press conference. I’d never seen them do that to anyone before and I’d like to think that was their way of thanking me for the journey we had all been on.

  ‘We found out tonight, it wasn’t there any more,’ I told them, matter-of-factly. ‘I gave it my best. I was heartbroken in the ring and I was crying, and no doubt I will go home and cry tonight, but I’m happy. I found out. I needed to find out if I could mix it up at world level and I got my answer. I can’t. I thought I was four rounds up at the time of the stoppage but I knew. I don’t need anybody to tell me. If I don’t draw a line in the sand now and end my career, I never will.’

  When the door closed on the makeshift media room I took the lonely walk down the long Manchester Arena corridors with my assistant trainer, Mike Jackson. In my dressing room, Jennifer was waiting for me and she hugged me again. My left cheek had swollen further still.

  It had been my encore performance and now I had to leave centre stage, my home, as I no longer belonged there. I gave it my best shot and it was just not there, I wished it was but it wasn’t. Fighters will always search for excuses, I should know because I’ve been there. But there was none: I was too old, had put on too much weight between fights and had not lived the life of a disciplined, professional prizefighter outside training camp. There had been too many hard, draining battles.

  During the after-fight party at the Hard Rock in Manchester, Jennifer was saying, ‘Your eye’s closing, should we go home? I doubt you feel up for seeing people.’ I said, ‘I never expected a feeling like this. I feel up to seeing people; I feel happy, content. I did myself proud, didn’t I?’ And I didn’t feel like I wanted to hide away from a party, even a few hours after a loss.

  Some might have thought I would have gone straight to bed sulking and been in turmoil but I talked to everyone and thanked them for coming, and I think everybody turned round and thought, ‘Good for you.’

  Despite the tears and the emotion from the fight – and there were plenty of tears – very soon afterwards I felt okay. I went out on a mate’s stag do the night after in Manchester and we celebrated just like I did when we beat Kostya Tszyu. When I went through my bad times, I’d think about how I was never going to hear that roar of the crowd again. Hearing it that one last time sent me into retirement happy and content. I didn’t win but it ended on a good vibe. It was the best thank-you the fans could have given me.

  Now, in retirement, I feel really proud. I thought if I was beaten it would have been a little harder to take, but it’s been easier than I could ever have imagined. Ultimately I wanted to come back to make people proud of me and find out if I still had it. I’ve got the answers and that’s why I’m happy to go into retirement, build a family and do what I’m doing.

  I wasn’t destroyed like I was against Pacquiao. I could finally say, ‘All right, I’m happy with that now.’ I can watch boxing today and enjoy it. I can look in the mirror and say, ‘Listen, you have not got it any more.’

  It’s time for a fresh chapter in my life; one that does not involve me punching people or getting hit for a living.

  CHAPTER 14

  Being Happy

  People have said my lifestyle made me and broke me – the hard fights, the late nights, the drinking, all the weight I put on. Maybe they were right. Those same people said it was because I was a Jack the Lad, not going to red carpet events, just going down the pub, playing darts, going to City, going out with the lads on a Friday and Saturday night. Going to watch the boys play for their local teams on a Sunday morning, and then out on the piss with them all day,
but then this is why the people loved me. In all, I reckon I lost around seventy stone in my career. In one year, when I fought four times, I lost two and a half stone per fight; that’s ten stone in a year, my entire body-weight. I had no shame. But if I’d lived my life differently, would 25,000 to 30,000 have gone to Vegas?

  Las Vegas is some place, by the way. I always dreamed of fighting there. When I go back to Vegas it’s amazing; even today in the casinos the croupiers nod at me and people sing ‘There’s only one Ricky Hatton’ or ‘Walking in a Hatton Wonderland’. They must be sick of it now over there! You’d think I’d be yesterday’s news, so it makes me feel proud; it’s not bad for a guy who hardly knew a world existed beyond the council estate he was brought up on. It’s not like it’s round the corner, you’re over the other side of the world and people treat me so nicely. Me and Jennifer have been to Vegas several times since my last fight there, and when we’ve asked for tickets to shows and offered to buy them – for example, at the MGM Grand – we’re told, ‘Ricky, your money is no good here. The MGM Grand has never taken as much money as it did that weekend you fought Floyd Mayweather. These tickets are on us.’

  I presented an award in Vegas not long ago and I went for something to eat and drink at the Crown & Anchor British pub off The Strip with one of my pals; when I asked for the bill, it was the same thing: ‘Your money is no good here. We took the most money in the history of the Crown & Anchor whenever you were in town. Don’t you dare.’ When we went to leave, and I asked them to call for a taxi, one of the staff gave us a lift. I’d never have thought travelling there would be anything like that.

  When I first started off, I wanted to be a world champion more than anything else; the only other things that interested me were supporting Manchester City and listening to Oasis. I ended my career having won four world titles in two weight classes, I’ve boxed at Man City’s ground, where I’m on first-name terms with the players – and I still get star struck – and I’m mates with the Gallagher brothers, Liam and Noel. Being a Man City fan meant that when City were going through some financial issues a few years ago there was speculation in the paper that I was going to buy the club (it’s a far cry from where City are today). Fans said to me, ‘The club’s in trouble, Rick. Why don’t you invest some of your money and buy us a player?’ There was a right back who played for us, Sun Jihai, and when the club was struggling I was asked, ‘Why don’t you buy Sun Jihai, that can be your contribution to the club?’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘Fucking hell, how much do you think I’ve made?’ I will always love City but no way could I do that.

  After City won the league in the 2011–2012 season, when Sergio Agüero basically clinched it with the last ball that was kicked that season, I was in one box and Liam was in another. When Agüero scored, Liam was running around his box, saw me, and ran towards me with his arms out, shouting out as he ran over, ‘Fucking have it. We’re fucking having it tonight, Rick. We’re going out.’ We went for a drink at his box. I was pissed and Liam swaggered out, and we posed for pictures. You couldn’t have wiped the smiles off our faces and I could just tell people were thinking, ‘I bet those two will have a good night tonight.’ We painted the town blue.

  Nights out for me are rarer now, though. I have my family, my businesses and my fighters to train and promote. My fighters are vital to my business – any promoter will tell you, you have to invest in talent. When Frank Warren signed me up, there was no guarantee I was going to end up where I did and that’s the gamble Frank took as a promoter. I have to do the same; you’ve got to invest in someone, hopefully they will get to the big stage and hopefully you will get any winnings back. That’s promoting. So I have invested my money in fighters, a few champions. I had to get them fighting and I had to get some dates from Sky for the fights to be broadcast, and in order to get those dates, I had to double up title fights on my bills because I had fewer dates than I’d have liked. I thought because my shows were so good they would give me more dates, but they didn’t. They cut me from the schedule.

  I’ve got good fighters who I’ve invested in and I’ve got a good stable together, among them some titleholders, and then when my dates were cut I thought, ‘What do I do now?’ It would have been dead easy for me to say, ‘Right, that’s it. There’s no revenue coming in so I’m going to knock it on the head.’ But I haven’t, I’ve stayed at it, and all of my fighters are still getting work, fighting title fights.

  I’ve realized that I’m not that different from Frank in many ways – just because things don’t go right I’m not one to chuck the towel in. I saw this happen with Frank – just when you’d think he might have trouble and he’s not going to be the same force, he comes back and delivers. I’m sure when I lost my Sky dates people thought I would be gone like a cool breeze, but that’s not the case – I’m made of stronger stuff than that.

  I was upset at the time by the split with Sky – of course I was – and it has made the already hard business of promoting even harder. When you think of how big boxing is in the Sky Sports empire, my part of it was so minute, but they decided they wanted to go with one promoter, Matchroom, who do a high percentage of Sky Sports programming across the board with snooker, darts and fishing. It’s understandable, so there are no complaints about that. But where I feel hard done by is that I never got a phone call or anything personal at all – a brief email went to my director of boxing, Richard Poxon, saying they weren’t going to renew the dates, and wishing us all the best. That was it. It’s a different ball game as a promoter though. I had 8,000 people turn out at my weigh-ins – if I could sell that for a show now, it would be unbelievable. No one said it was easy and I know for a fact it’s not.

  Ultimately my success has cost me my family. It breaks my heart, what has happened with them. They have been in a number of papers over the last few months talking about our split here and there. It’s always, ‘a family friend said . . .’ or ‘a source close to . . .’ but it is never nice. There was a story where it was written that Mum and Dad had sent Millie a birthday present as an olive branch; but they’d agreed, through solicitors, to have no contact. At the end of one of the articles it said my businesses were losing money and I’ve got a load of hangers-on, but these were businesses that my dad started. I have since got rid of the TV company; the equipment we had was not good enough and the wage bill too high and we were overpriced. We’ve made a few changes with the Health and Fitness facility and we’re now making money, and we have sold the clothing company on to another firm – it’s their area of expertise – and that is going from strength to strength. Financially, I am secure. I will probably never spend all my money, and my children are my beneficiaries.

  Although I lost to Senchenko, I still feel I could win another world title. If I’d picked an easier opponent, I could have done it all over again. There were people like the old Australian lightweight banger Michael Katsidis and veteran contender Lovemore Ndou mentioned as possible opponents, and perhaps if I’d selected someone like that – a confidence booster – and then gone for Senchenko, then I could have gone on from there. I feel there was a world title in me. But the comeback was not all about winning another title; I’d loved to have done that, but it was about finding out what I needed to find out, and I got what I wanted from it. I’m quite chuffed with how I’ve held it together, in retirement. If I’d won and squeezed over the finishing line, I’d have been tempted to fight on, so maybe the best thing was to suffer a defeat like that, a knockout defeat to make me realize. A knockout defeat brings the reality home.

  But I wouldn’t change it for the world. My boxing idols, Nigel Benn and Roberto Durán were there that night. Nigel Benn was everything to me as a teenager; when I went to Old Trafford and looked at the size of the crowd when he fought Chris Eubank, little did I know that fifteen years on I would be doing the same at the City of Manchester Stadium. The teenage Ricky Hatton sat there in awe, thinking Nigel Benn could do no wrong, so to do what I’ve done, and finish in front of Ni
gel Benn himself, makes me very proud. I’ve come a long way.

  Roberto Durán was my other hero. Roberto had been to my gym before in Hyde, been to some of my fights and we’ve done a few sportsman’s dinners together; when he heard I was visiting his country (for a WBA convention at the end of 2012) he got in touch with Paul Speak. He said he would pick me up at the airport and I couldn’t believe it. Roberto Durán? Picking me up at the airport? You’re joking. Imagine your hero picking you up at the airport. When I got off the plane I expected him to be outside the airport with a car but he was right there at the gate, shouting, ‘Ricky, Ricky, come this way.’ There was a massive queue at passport control and he just whisked me round the side while the immigration people yelled at him, ‘Roberto, Roberto, passport, passport. He needs to show his passport.’ Roberto just spun round, raised two fingers and told them to fuck off. He took me right through. How famous are you when you don’t even have to go through passport control in your country? Incredible.

  One of the questions I get asked most is, who I would like to have fought in history? I answer Roberto, because as he was my hero it would have been nice to share the ring with him. I’d like to have found out just how good he was. I feel like I’ve fought pretty much everyone in my era, but I always wonder how I would have got on against Puerto Rican warrior Miguel Cotto, or the always-exciting, but sadly late, Arturo Gatti. Those are the fights I wanted to be involved in, proper tear-ups. I struggled badly coming to terms with the losses to Mayweather and Pacquiao, but time is healing those wounds because when I retired and knew I wasn’t going to fight again I could actually deal with it better. At the time, it was devastating. Even the Senchenko pill is not as bitter now, knowing there will be no more comebacks; against him I got the peace of mind I set out for. The more people try to change my mind now, the more likely I am to go back to a darker place, so while I’m still happy, I just want to leave it be.