War and Peace

by Ricky Hatton

  ‘Well, not really, no,’ they said, shaking their heads.

  ‘Fucking stitch it up,’ I said.

  My dad doesn’t drink and he said, ‘All for a drink? You dick-head. Have the needle.’ I suppose anyone would have thought the same as him, but I felt I’d earned a drink. I got them to pass me a towel and told Paul Speak to hold me down. I folded the towel up, clamped my teeth down on it and they stitched those two craters up without any painkillers. The party was good, too, and there was a new deal on the table after Maussa, a three-fight package with HBO in the USA, the biggest network for boxing in the world. Showtime had been brilliant for me, but HBO were the biggest spenders, with the deepest pockets, meaning the biggest stars and the largest promotional groups inevitably gravitated towards them.

  By beating Maussa I had unified the belts and was recognized by Ring magazine as the best light-welterweight in the world. It was clear I was the number one, and I wanted to do what a lot of great fighters have done: try to go through the weights.

  People recognized me in America now, too. Kostya Tszyu was a megastar in Australia, had fought in Las Vegas, where he had knocked out Judah and unified the belts, and if you beat someone like that, even if people haven’t seen the fight, they’re like, ‘Jesus Christ, someone beat Tszyu and made him quit on his stool? Oh, that’s him.’ I was ringside in Atlantic City for some fights at the time and they introduced Mexican legend Julio César Chávez, Oscar De La Hoya . . . and me. It was unbelievable to be mentioned alongside fighters like that.

  HBO wanted to showcase me, and my first fight for them was against WBA welterweight world champion Luis Collazo in Boston. HBO selected tough Juan Lazcano first, because I wasn’t planning on moving up in weight, but HBO wouldn’t accept any of the other fighters, such as my IBF mandatory contender Naoufel Ben Rabah, who we put forward. For a while welterweight champion Carlos Baldomir, a rugged guy from Argentina, was in the running. Seven weeks before the fight, Lazcano pulled out injured and then they chucked in Collazo, who was a little bit unheard of at the time. He was a New York-based Puerto Rican, and I watched the tapes of him and I thought, ‘He’s not bad. Southpaw, and I’ve always struggled with southpaws. Pretty good.’ He had won the WBA welterweight title from a decent fighter called José Antonio Rivera a year earlier.

  He turned out to be a lot better than I thought. Billy Graham advised me against the fight: ‘Ricky, I’ve had a look at this Collazo. Have you seen him?’ asked Billy. ‘Yeah, yeah. I think I can take him.’ Billy still said he didn’t like it. I was a five-foot-six-inch light-welterweight. I had no problems doing the weight. Why would I want to move up seven pounds? It’s not like the lighter weights, where bantamweight is eight stone six and super-bantam is eight stone ten. I had to move up seven pounds and I didn’t really have the height to carry it. So he was a southpaw and I was going straight in for a world title in a higher weight class against a bigger man, in America. ‘No, no, no. This is bad,’ Billy said. I told him that HBO weren’t accepting anyone else, and in the end I just said I wanted to do it and become a two-weight world champion. Maybe I should have had a warm-up at the weight – but you don’t really get those luxuries these days. So, somewhat reluctantly, we went with it because it was either all agree on that or get in line and wait for another date.

  I always liked to be active and I didn’t like the idea of being on the back burner after unifying the titles. The downside, apart from fighting someone with a style I needed like a hole in the head, was that having won the IBF and WBA light-welterweight belts I had to relinquish them to move up in weight and fight for the WBA title.

  The story was ‘Ricky Hatton comes to America’. It was in Boston. I’d beaten Tszyu, knocked out Maussa and was billed as a new sensation, just like Naz was when I had my second fight on his big Madison Square Garden show nine years earlier. For what the weather was like in Boston, it might as well have been in England, I’d never seen anything like it, severe floods, rivers were flowing down the streets and the rain was non-stop.

  I went to a basketball game and a baseball game – neither of which I really understood – but we were cooped up most of the time. Still, training went well. Kerry Kayes assured me the seven extra pounds wouldn’t be a problem and I’d always gone to the ring weighing around eleven stone two pounds on fight night anyway having weighed-in at ten stone the day before.

  Just days ahead of the fight, we weren’t actually even sure whether I would be fighting for the title; in a New York District Court, Souleymane M’baye – a Frenchman promoted by Frank Warren – had challenged the WBA over his position as their number one contender at light-welterweight. He wanted the WBA to refuse to sanction the Collazo fight unless I agreed to return to light-welterweight and fight him before a certain date. The courts denied him that, but they had recognized that the WBA had not treated him fairly and said he would be involved when the vacant light-welterweight title was fought for.

  Because I’d surrendered my titles for this, I couldn’t afford any slip-ups. If I lost, I would be at the back of the queue for any title fights, so it was a gamble. There was talk of fights with Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya being around the corner. It doesn’t get much bigger than that. But Collazo, who had won twenty-six fights and lost just once, said he had been waiting all of his life for an opportunity like this. Raised in Brooklyn, Collazo said, ‘This is the chance to prove to the world that I’m the truth,’ he said. He had been a welterweight since the age of fifteen and he was going to make me earn every penny.

  There were around 6,000 fans in the TD Banknorth Garden and a good number of Brits making their voices heard. I made the welterweight limit of ten stone seven at the first time of asking, and by fight night I was around four or five pounds heavier than I was when I usually fought – and I felt a little more sluggish because of it.

  That said, I started quickly. I went in, turned Collazo so easily and cracked him. I knocked him down in the first ten seconds and thought, ‘This is all right, this. That was all a bit easy.’ Then he came back at me – he had been unsettled but not hurt. What I noticed was that when we were fighting at close-quarters, at light-welterweight I had been able to nudge people out of the way, push them and manhandle them a bit, and the first time I tried to shove him and throw him he didn’t move. It was that extra seven pounds and it was all manufactured weight I’d put on. It’s not like I had needed to go up. It was through diet and strength and conditioning with Kerry. I was never a welterweight, I hadn’t grown into it, I’d made myself one. When you factor in that I’d struggled with southpaws, thinking back to Jürgen Brähmer in the amateurs and the likes of Eamonn Magee, it began to get difficult. When you go down the middle to fight – and I was so attacking-minded – you’re always that nearer to the jab and open for the straight left against left-handed fighters.

  The contest went one way and then the other. I was hitting him, banging him and barging him back. I was stronger than him but I could feel the difference having moved up. As the fight wore on, he must have thought ‘I’m just as strong as him’ and he started planting his feet a little bit more and pushing me back. No fighter had ever done that to me at light-welterweight; even Kostya Tsyzu, who I’d bulldozed. I could tell Collazo started to believe he could have his successes, too.

  In the second half, I had no second wind. I just had to grind it out, thinking all the time, ‘This fella’s not gonna move now.’ Previously my opponents would stand there and have a bit of a go. But then, after a bit, they couldn’t handle the pace or the strength and started to move. Not Collazo. He stood there and had it out with me. It was a hard fight, a really hard fight. His shots were powerful and hurtful, and he was drilling me with one-twos down the middle. My punches didn’t have the same snap in my shots at 147 pounds and I didn’t have the same explosive power or strength. Then I started thinking how the last fight was nip and tuck.

  More than that, it was absolutely draining. It took everything, and by the last round I was hanging
on for dear life and ultimately it was only the early knockdown that won it for me. There’s no doubt in my mind I deserved it, but it was only by the narrowest of margins. He thought he’d done enough to win, but it was my heart, work rate and angles that just saw me do enough to win 115–112, 115–112 and 114–113. I didn’t even celebrate and could barely lift my arms above my head when Billy raised me onto his shoulders.

  Billy was protective of me and blamed my move up on the demands of TV. ‘The only reason you move up in weight is if you can’t do the weight and that’s not the case,’ he said. ‘But nobody listens to the trainer. Ricky is my friend and I see what he goes through.’ My left eye was heavily bruised, my nose was broken and physically it is the worst I’ve ever been after a fight. Both of us looked dejected, despite the fact I had just become a two-weight world champion.

  I changed into a suit for the post-fight press conference, where I told everyone I had noticed a difference in the weight. I searched for the positives straight away. ‘If I’m going to stay at welterweight, I have to grow into the weight,’ I said, ‘but my first fight was against a world champion – and not even Floyd Mayweather did that. I’ll get better.’

  I’d managed to find a way to win and, after spending some time at the after-fight party at the Hyatt, we ended up raiding the hotel minibars. I wanted to enjoy it but things rapidly went downhill when me and Jen got into the hotel room. The pace of the fight and how gruelling it had been suddenly hit me. It was a long night. I hardly slept and Jennifer kept pleading with me to call the doctor. I plunged the room into darkness and lay on the bed. Jennifer lay next to me and kept asking me to call for help, but I wouldn’t. I said I’d be okay, but one minute I was hot, then I was cold, then I was shaking. My face bulged with the swelling. I was like death warmed up, sipping water all night. I couldn’t stand light or noise. Even when I closed my eyes, colourful shadows danced around in front of me as I shook more and more violently. It was a horrible feeling and I eventually fell asleep, utterly exhausted.

  When I got up in the morning I was okay, although I was still carrying those war wounds to my battered face. Collazo wanted to fight me again but I soon realized welterweight wasn’t for me so announced I’d return to light-welterweight and that was that. I think the Americans loved the fight, but HBO might have thought I was not as good as people were making out, yet there was still momentum. It was a good fight for the fans and I’d now won the WBA title at welterweight making me a two-weight champion. I just think it was clear welterweight was not the division for me.

  I needed to rest, and a family holiday to Florida with my mum, dad, Jennifer and Campbell was in order. We went there almost straight after the fight and went around the theme parks in Orlando. We went to the Rainforest Cafe in the Animal Kingdom and I had a double rack of ribs and a mountain of chips. My eyes were clearly bigger than my stomach, though there was time to work on that in the coming months, but I was struggling and relieved when they took the plate away. Then they put an enormous gateau, with four or five layers and sparklers coming out of the top (it was meant to look like a volcano), in front of me. ‘Congratulations on your fight, Mr Hatton,’ they said. ‘There’s no way I’m going to eat any of this,’ I thought, smiling and nodding gratefully. Campbell was only young and he helped me but Jennifer said it would be rude if I didn’t eat it. So I was cutting it off, shoving it round the plate and playing with it, and by the time I’d got to the hotel – because I’d just finished my fight and my stomach had shrunk – my belly was almost cake-shaped. I could literally balance a pint on the cake in my tummy.

  It was a great holiday. One night, my mum and dad had Campbell, while me and Jen went to Pleasure Island, a place where they have bars, cinemas and nightclubs, and there was an Irish pub there. My eyes lit up, a fluorescent shamrock to me is like the star of Bethlehem. I was so chuffed; they had an Irish band and it was brilliant. We had something to eat – they didn’t charge us: ‘Mr Hatton, that’s on the house.’ We went in a few other bars, including a cigar bar as I used to like the odd cigar, and I went to the toilets and came back to find a few guys surrounding Jennifer and one in my chair. ‘What’s going on here, fellas?’ I said.

  ‘Hey, man. It’s Ricky Hatton,’ they replied.

  ‘Yes, it’s Ricky Hatton – and that’s my seat, mate.’ They couldn’t apologize enough.

  We went to another bar, and it was a gay club with a rotating dance floor. I went to the bar to get a drink and Jennifer was behind me. Next thing you know, she was moving away from me, thanks to the dance floor, and halfway round the other side of the club and there were a load of guys around me asking me if I was all right and what I was doing. I shouted, ‘Jen, Jen. Come back!’

  As 2006 ended I’d had just one fight in the calendar year. The court case with Warren was still to run its course; and the WBA gave me 120 days after defeating Collazo to defend against Oktay Urkal, who was a decent German – but that fight meant little to anyone. One thing we did know was that the Americans were pleased enough with the action from the Collazo fight to want us back.

  Collazo turned out to be a handful for anyone and someone I did not get much credit for beating because no one had ever really heard of him; but after he fought me he put in a good performance against Shane Mosley and then fought Andre Berto and HBO had him beating Berto. My profile was increasing all the time, and whenever I went back to America I was being recognized more often. Wherever I went it was, ‘Ricky, this is such and such from HBO’, ‘Ricky, this is so and so from the MGM.’ It was the stuff dreams are made of. For someone like me, who grew up on a council estate, to have someone like David Beckham texting me and asking me about my next fight, I was really proud. It was getting big.

  Seven months after Collazo I was back in business. I was training through Christmas for an IBF light-welterweight title fight with the man they called ‘Iron Twin’ Juan Urango, who again was not known much outside of boxing’s hardcore fans, but it was a fight that would see me as the headline act in Las Vegas for the first time. I actually spent Christmas Day in the gym with Billy and Matthew, who was also fighting on the bill. The co-feature saw the excellent Mexican José Luis Castillo in with Cameroon’s dangerman Herman Ngoudjo, and my fight with Urango and Castillo’s were seen as semi-finals, with the winners to meet later in the year.

  My team and I were walking down The Strip, past Paris and past Caesars, and up in lights there were adverts for Celine Dion, Tom Jones . . . and then my face popped up, giant-sized. I couldn’t believe it – I grabbed my camera as fast as I could and took a picture, I was like a schoolkid. There were problems, however. I was staying in the casinos and anyone who has stayed in the casinos in Vegas knows that they can leave your nose bunged up, courtesy of the air conditioning, and it was terrible – my nose was rock solid. In training I’d said to Billy, ‘I feel like shit.’ We used to do our traditional fifteen rounds on the bodybelt as our last workout, and we had to cut it down to twelve because I was tired. Billy said, ‘You’re not going to get any fitter, Ricky. There’s no point leaving another three rounds here on the bodybelt and dragging it out.’ Mentally, I just thought, ‘I’ve not done my fifteen.’ I was back at light-welterweight and should have been more comfortable, but even the change back in my diet and having to drop seven pounds more than I did for Collazo threw me out a bit, too.

  The morning before the weigh-in I went down to the area where we were going to take to the scales and I said to the organizers, ‘So where are the ropes that corner off the stage?’ They said they didn’t need it and I went, ‘Really? Do you know how many we’re bringing?’ They assured us they knew what they were doing and we left them to it.

  Sure enough, when the fans came they completely took over. Whoosh – the place was under siege. They were climbing up the slot machines, singing, ‘There’s only one Ricky Hatton’, and there were only about five security guards for hundreds upon hundreds of fans. We’d warned them, and it was bedlam.

  I had wat
ched Urango, the Colombian Hulk, on video, and he was a strong fighter, unbeaten in eighteen fights with just one draw. When I saw him at the weigh-in he was enormous and I whispered to Billy, ‘It’s killed him to make the weight. No way is he going to make this.’ They said, ‘ten stone exactly,’ and I thought ‘Fucking hell. He’s done it.’ He was a giant of a man. He had a huge upper body, a big old back. Spindly little legs, though. His top half was massive, and he got me with a body shot in, I think, the sixth round and I really had to hold on. I could have done with being able to breathe through my nose then. In fact he hurt me a few times to the head as well.

  Even though I was known as a scrapper, I had a better boxing brain than people thought. Nine times out of ten I liked to have a tear-up but I thought, ‘I’m ill, here, so what do I need to do to win this fight? He’s built like a brick shithouse, but he’s slow.’ So it was bang, bang, get three or four shots off and smother him. Then do it again. I could get inside, fire off some shots and then smother him, cover him up. Then he’d come again. I’d pick him off on the way in and grab him once more. It must have pissed him right off.

  I got stick afterwards for hitting and holding, but that’s where I felt comfortable. I just thought, ‘Move, move, move. Don’t try to knock him out. Look at the size and strength of him.’ The only chance he had was to knock me out and the only way he was going to knock me out was if I stood there and had it out with him. In the end it was a landslide victory, I won 119–109 on all three scorecards, but I was blowing my nose from start to finish and coughing up all kinds of crap in between rounds.