Remembering Ricky Hatton

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Sky Sports’s Craig Slater remembers former world boxing champion Ricky Hatton, who has died at the age of 46.

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Former world boxing champion Ricky Hatton has died at the age of 46. Tributes continue to fly in. Let’s get more now from our reporter Craig Slater. You can join us on the phone. Craig, this is devastating news this afternoon. Uh an incredible boxer and someone who will be well known by not just boxing fans but sports fans as well. How will he be remembered? He was a a remarkable human being. I had the great privilege to know him as a friend. I first met him before he turned professional. He’d been ABA champion. He he was 18 years of age. I mean, this is it’s the devastating news for all of us that that knew him. Uh my sincere condolences to to Ray and Carol, to Campbell, to Matthew Hat, to all the family. It’s it’s just so unexpected uh all of this. But yeah, his was without question one of one of the great careers in British boxing. And I was lucky enough to to to follow that career pretty much from its beginning to its its its high level conclusion. some nights which were without compare, I have to say, in in British boxing history, which took the sport to new heights and reach new audiences. And he he was a he was a one-off. And you know, we could talk about the record, the wins and losses, and we we can talk about the the numbers of fans that followed him around the world. But at the end of the day, this was a a son, a beloved son, brother, father, and and friend to to so many people who did so much good as well. And what was great about him and and I got to see him occasionally on on a social basis as well that he was he was so unassuming, modest, quiet. There was a shy side to him as well. And I and I, you know, in trying to deal with the news today and and and the difficulty he’s had to adjust to to life outside the ring and despite the fact that, you know, he’s been able to train fighters and promote fighters and do all of that, you know, he he he wasn’t someone who absolutely reveled in the spotlight, but what a special talent. and and I I there’s a lot we can say about him, but I I rem I’m remembering now that first day I met him. I’d gone with Glenn McCroy with the Sky Crew up to Billy Graham’s gym in Manchester. And to be honest with you now, I can’t remember who we were meant to be filming that day, but Billy wanted to introduce us, the fight, the new fighter who had come to join him. And the enthusiasm on Billy Graham’s face that day as he he talked about how he reminded him of the great Julio Cesar Chavez with the body punches he could throw. He knew this was maybe the most special talent as a trainer he would ever work with. And that relationship blossomed so magnificently. And and and yeah, as I say, transcended everything in terms of the scale of the fights that Ricky was involved in and the quality of the fights he was involved in. Pretty much anything that had that had come before in British boxing. And and you know, we’re we’re talking about periods when when Lennox Lewis was fighting. I mean, yes, Lennox had had a magnificent career. You might probably place him as as maybe the greatest greatest British boxer of all time in career terms, but in box office terms, in terms of capturing the public’s imagination, Ricky Hatton did that so much more than than than I think anyone in the last half century in British boxing. Yeah, he really was a towering figure both in the ring with these mega fights that you mentioned, the likes of Pacquiao and and and Mayweather and all those big fights that he had at Las Vegas, but it was his personality out of the ring as well, wasn’t it, Craig? That made him such a fan favorite and such a popular figure, not just with boxing fans, but with sports fans. Well, listen, he had that he had that identification with Manchester City. Maybe he could have been a footballer himself. His dad Ray was was was on the books at Manchester City. He grew up above a pub, the new in and Hattisley. Uh lovely parents, Ray and Carol. Ray went on to run a carpet business, you know, very unassuming people, humble people um that that were in and around this very special talent. And you have to say I I have before or since I have seen nothing like the the pilgrimages and I think that’s the only word we can use to describe them of Ricky Hatton fans that traveled to Las Vegas in particular for those two big fights against Mayweather and Pacquiao. And also the greatest victory of his career in in most people’s eyes was the win that made him world champion and world number one in the 10 stone division. And I think we have to remember that he boxed Pacquiao and Mayweather at 10 stone seven welterweight. Ricky Hatton I think ultimately was a 10 stone fighter and and the greatest in the world for the period in which he boxed. But I I often say to people that if if you want to imagine what it was like to be with a in the in the army of a medieval warrior king, a Henry V or a Robert the Bruce or something like that. If you’d gone to a Ricky Hatton fight, you would have understood what that meant. Just the agilation and the identification his fan base had with him. I I mean, I’m so devastated today to hear this news. Craig, thank you for the moment.