Remembering Ricky Hatton: The People's Champion

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast. People will make their own minds up, you know, of how good they're a fighter they actually think I was. But, you know, I was maybe in a sentence the world champion that was one of us.

0:18Mark Pougatch:Today on The Sports Agents, we celebrate the life of a true British sporting icon, the hitman Ricky Hatton. His death shocked the world yesterday at just 46 years old. He was a fighter who turned boxing into a spectacle for an army of fans. When he went to Las Vegas to face Floyd Mayweather, it felt as if half the UK had followed him. Arguably his best night, shocking the great Costa Zou.

0:55world with a truly stunning win over a modern legend. He is the champion of the world. The hitman really has arrived in the big time.

1:07Mark Pougatch:20 years ago in front of a sold out Manchester arena at a time when British boxing seemed a little bit lost. Maybe it's a bit akin to how it feels now, drifting between eras. Well, Hatton stepped out of the shadows and we all fell in love with him. He was a ferocious fighter. He was a superstar. He was a Mancunian who you felt you could go to the pub with and talk about the football or oasis. In retirement, he was open about his struggles with his mental health and during his career with addictions. And he helped countless people by being brave enough outside the ring to talk about all of that.

1:43Welcome to the Sports Agents.

1:54Mark Pougatch:The Sports Agents with Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman. Hello, Mark. Hi, Gabby. It's just a sad feeling, isn't it really? And this podcast will be dominated by Ricky Hatton and memories of Ricky Hatton, both as a man and as a fighter. And it It has. His death has just overshadowed the whole weekend and dominated the whole weekend. And we are of a certain age that, you know, that period of Ricky Hatton dominance, I think our peers as well, you know, I know the person that told me, you know, he's one of the editors of Match of the Day. I was working with him yesterday on the rugby and he came over to me and he said, have you seen this?

2:38Mark Pougatch:And we're both kind of, I think, just totally shocked. And then your memories start kind of coming back of somebody who, you know, was such an important part of the British sporting landscape. I watched my son play Sunday League football yesterday. First time I've watched him play football in about four years. I got back in the car and I turned the radio on and I heard, I actually heard Buncey struggling to talk, actually. like trying to hold the tears back and I thought I have no idea I hadn't looked at my phone I've no idea what's happened you know to hear Steve like that really really brought a lump to my throat so we will pay tribute further tribute to him in this episode um another busy sporting weekend of course with the world athletics championships getting underway um sadly not working on it this year because I'm doing you've got too much other work but I was glued to yesterday morning's 100 meters and Usain Bolt was in the stadium in Tokyo and of course the cameras couldn't stay away from him to watch this and to watch what looks like finally for Jamaica another era of greatness because America has dominated since Usain retired but oblique Seville who's 24 years old the winner and he ended up 9.77 his time he had to get a PB I think to win that race it was so stacked and you know the scenes just reminiscent actually of that kind of era that Usain was was dominating kind of around you know kind of 2008 onwards seeing all the Jamaicans going crazy in Tokyo and what was lovely as well about that stadium of course it was the Olympic Stadium that was empty yeah in 2021 and to see it full and to see the crowds enjoying it it felt like a nice bit of redemption for Tokyo.

4:27Does it does he now have to wear the mantle of the new Usain Bolt.

4:32Mark Pougatch:Well, he's got the same coach, Glenn Mills, and they've said for a while that he could be the new Usain Bolt. You know, it's terrible, Monica, isn't it? It is. He knew anything is awful. And he's not, he's not a natural kind of, you know, he's not a huge show. I mean, he did rip his shirt off at the end, but, and Usain did that because it was part of his, you know, we're going to talk later on about Ricky Hatton's authenticity. Usain was absolutely, you know, that way all the time. So, so I think it's, it's really unfair, isn't it? To, to, kind of look at the next generation and try. I mean, there are about 30 years of Manchester United winners who had to cope with being the next George Best.

5:07I mean, it was just like, God, grief. Give them a chance. Anyhow, on the Athletics, remember you can catch up with our interview with Eugene Amadadzi from this weekend. All our episodes are on YouTube, Global Player, or wherever you get your pods, hit subscribe or follow. So don't miss a show. But that interview with Eugene was one of our favourites from the two years that we've been doing this.

5:28Mark Pougatch:And he's yet to compete because they've had the mixed four by four, but they haven't had the four by ones yet. So you will see him in Tokyo competing. And hopefully Great Britain will pick up something from that because they haven't had a very good opening weekend so far. Sprints didn't go well, did they? No, not so well. Obviously, Dina did creep into the final but came last. So, yeah, it's not been a glorious weekend. Get in touch with us, please, via email, the sportsagentsatglobal.com or on our socials or via the link in the episode description and please rate follow and subscribe next up we are going to turn our attention to the late great Ricky Hatton truly one of Britain's most loved boxers and today we're going to remind ourselves why

6:16Manchester!

6:25I always said I'd be number one and you know what? You, me loyal fans, deserve it as much as me we did it together tonight.

6:40And I tell you what There's only one word I can use for your support tonight, and that was legendary. God bless you all. I mean it.

6:52A memorable night here in Manchester. If I can be half the champion, Kostya Zou was, I'd have been doing well. So I'll give Kostya a great champion and a round of applause for me.

7:03Mark Pougatch:Before we speak to our guests today, we've also been catching up with Eddie Hearn, ahead of a special interview for the weekend edition, which is out this Friday. Eddie was a rival promoter for Matchroom, and their big boom really came just after Ricky's prime. So we asked him about the blueprint Hatton set out for the likes of Anthony Joshua. I mean, he's the same age as me, but I see him as like this senior legend of the sport. I mean, he was like the last of the dying breed before social media. so the real working class hero that was the man of the people right never did anything for views or likes or you know never showed any act of kindness and asked for it to be filmed and you know put out there by by his pr team he never had a pr team in fact you know he would go out and he would fight and then next thing he would be in the pub in manchester and guess what that's why 30 ,000 or 40 ,000 people traveled to his fights in Las Vegas I mean you never you'll never ever ever see anyone as popular as that and you know Ricky was a guy who he could just adapt to any environment but he loved just being one of the lads you know he would get up and he would perform stand-up comedy I saw he was such a funny guy and full of life full of energy amazing to be around and you know he probably needed to work on himself but he was always willing and prioritizing working on others you know and that's a true act of selflessness where you know and actually a showing that you know on the outside he had his demons but you would never know it in the moment to the face he was full of life and energy and he would always help others you know i think of his his son Campbell that we promoted, you know, for his whole career, you know, his brother, Matthew, we worked with as well.

9:01I mean, you just can't imagine, you know, and, and it's just so sad, so sad because he, and you've seen the response. I've never found one person who's ever said a bad word about Ricky Hatton. And I work in boxing. Where people slag each other off nonstop. Not one bad word. Never. Don't like that Ricky Hatton. Oh, he's a bitch. Yeah. Just, we love Ricky. everybody everybody loved him there was one person in the whole industry that didn't love

9:31Mark Pougatch:ricky hat and that shows it all i think you know as you say there's been such an outpouring of love and appreciation and you know from from the from his boxing style and what he gave in the ring to what he gave everyday fans in the street to the kind of showman that he was as well it was he was a full package and in quite a few of the the boxes who've spoken about him and amir khan in particular spoke about learning a lesson from from Ricky that was to talk about your mental health and talk about problems do you think do you think boxing needs a little bit of a kind of a lesson from that in terms of talking a little bit more about how hard it is to transfer from being everybody's hero in the ring to to ordinary everyday life I think it's all sport really to be honest with you like anyone that's adored and anyone that plays in or performs in a huge moment with incredible amount of adoration and energy and buzz once that leaves everything changes and you know boxing saves so many people because it gives them and aj is a good example of this it gives them a regimental lifestyle that helps them one just stay focused but also get get their life in order in so many other ways so when Ricky was fighting you know the only bad time for Ricky was when he wasn't in training because that's when he would spiral out or he gave his mates and he'd get you know he'd like to go out the time and he always used to balloon in weight and you know that was that was part of Ricky's kind of thing he was just such he was just such a normal one of the lads that that's just what he did he finished his fight and then he went on holiday to Tenerife for four weeks with the boys and just I and drunk beers you know and that was that was him and but but then you go back to the gym and then everything's all right again you know and you have 12 weeks in the gym when that goes you must be completely lost in terms of what to do with yourself and you know he was a trainer he was a manager he was a promoter and all of these things might have been enough for someone else, but they couldn't fill the void that left when he retired.

11:48I'll stay in the game, I'll be a trainer. It was an amazing trainer. He did so much for so many fighters. I think that buzz when it goes, it's like when anything dies inside you, a passion or you're not able to do something anymore. It's been your life and it's the only thing that you care about and love. Life becomes lonely. you need to find another passion but sometimes that passion doesn't fulfill the hole that's left by the journey that he went and the problem is because of his adoration and because of those huge nights it wasn't just a fight down at york hall it was fighting floyd mayweather in las vegas with 70 000 brits and only 15 000 of them could even get in there's never been anything like it in terms of that love you know and that was showed yesterday i mean you know even at the football You know, you saw there wasn't anybody in boxing, in sport, from Manchester that wasn't completely rocked to the core by this.

12:43The Sports Agents. The Sports Agents. With Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman.

12:53Mark Pougatch:Well, let's talk more about Ricky Hatton, his legacy and what made him so special as a boxer with someone who commentated on him in the glory years of skyboxing, Andy Clark. Andy, thank you very much for joining us. Where do you place Ricky Hatton in the importance of British boxing over the last 50, 60 years? I've been thinking about this all day. And in my viewing lifetime, which is the last 40 years, I would say, I'm 47, so I'll put it at 40 years. I would say that of all the fighters that I've seen come through British boxing, and we've had some fantastic names over that period, we've achieved enormous things.

13:38I would say that his legend will be the one that will endure the most. I would say that he will be the biggest figure in boxing folklore from this period, from that 40-year period, because of the things that he achieved, but also because of the way that he went about things. the character that he was, the personality that he was. I think he was an enormously influential figure. And another thing about him that sometimes people either aren't aware of or just forget is that he achieved what you could describe as terrestrial fame, old school fame, kind of 1980s style fame, without actually ever boxing on terrestrial TV, which a while ago seemed impossible, didn't it?

14:24It was one of the criticisms of how the media has developed that people just wouldn't emerge in that way, like Frank Bruno in the 80s or Barry McGuigan. But Hatton did it, and that was down to just the all-round package that he was. And in terms of all-round packages, I just don't think we'll ever see another one like him. I genuinely don't.

14:45Mark Pougatch:Yeah, I think it's important probably, isn't it, Andy, to put into context actually what the media landscape was like, because people now are used to the way boxing disowns, kind of stranglehold on boxing. And there's very little boxing that happens on terrestrial television. But Sky, at the point that Ricky Hatton was breaking into his professional career, Sky kind of owned boxing, didn't it? And I imagine for Ricky, that relationship was just so symbiotic. It was a perfect storm because they would be thrilled to have a fighter like Ricky Hatton on the station. Tell us a bit about that relationship.

15:22The perfect person, because if you look at the 90s, there was Nassim and he was Nassim Hamed. He was an enormously popular fighter. He brought something new in terms of the showbiz and the glitz and the glamour. But in terms of personality, he was completely different to Hatton. He was a love me or hate me, you'll still watch me kind of character. whereas Hatton was a throwback. He was old school, if you like. He was somebody who everybody related to and identified with and he had the support of the football club. He had the support of the football supporters because where he lived, everybody did support football.

15:59It wasn't a specifically football thing. It was just that's the society and the group that he grew up with and they knew him and everybody felt like they knew him, whether they did or they didn't. And if you were a sports channel like Sky, and obviously football has always been the real driving momentum behind what you do because it's so incredibly popular. And at that point, it was just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. To have this fighter who had all of that support with him, not right from the start, because these things don't happen by accident. There's a lot of hard work that goes into it.

16:34But it just became this rolling stone that just gathered momentum and gathered momentum. And then it turned out as well that he was as good as he was because nobody can know that in the early stages because boxing is a strange sport where essentially you arrange your own fixtures. And if you've got somebody who sells a lot of tickets and who's really popular, but you suspect they might not be that good, then you can just be really careful with them and just try and keep that going for as long as you can. But as fights went on, you could see that he was really good, and he was really good to watch, and the following packaged into one.

17:09And so for Sky, as you say, where you can really give the exposure and get him on Sky Sports News as much as you possibly could. I mean, you might have been working there around those kinds of times. You could just go to town on somebody in a way that terrestrial TV just wouldn't have a space for. You talked about how you build a career and how you don't sell out places right at the very start because word has to spread of both style and talent. You know, when you actually look at Ricky's career, he turned pro at 18. And by the time he stopped fighting, I know there was a planned comeback. But by the time he stopped fighting, his record was still phenomenal.

17:57wasn't it Andy? I mean 48 fights, 45 wins, 32 knockouts, just the three losses. I mean that record having started at 18 stands up with the best of them doesn't it? Yeah it does, it does and that's a lot of fights and he boxed a lot when he was young and that's how you do it because you need to get people that seasoning, you need to get people that experience, you want to test them without overwhelming them because boxing is this very, very physical sport. It's a brutal sport physically and mentally. And as you say, when you look at the career overall, just the three defeats, the final one I don't even count against, Vyacheslav Senchenko, because that was about more than just whether he won or lost.

18:39That was something he needed to do for himself. But the other two defeats were against Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, at stages of their career where you could argue they were at their absolute peak. two of the best fighters of all time, two modern greats, certainly. And losing to them, there's no shame in it. But the problem was for Hatton, or one of the problems for Ricky, was that they just don't see it that way. They don't see it that way. And I remember talking to him in depth about those two fights because for a book I wrote a couple of years ago where I was looking in forensic detail into the knockout and what it does to people, whether you score one, whether you suffer one.

19:20And I wasn't sure if he did it, to be honest, because why would you want to do that? Talk in detail about those two nights. And I almost didn't ask him, but he did it and he was really generous with his time. And that in itself tells you loads about who he is. But he found it very difficult to get over those defeats because they hold themselves to such ludicrous standards, elite level athletes. You know, nothing is ever enough, is it? They always feel like they should be doing more. I was thinking about the Olympic logo the other day, and it's all about more, isn't it? Swifter, faster, higher, stronger.

19:57And that's how they are. So it's difficult for them to look at the career in the whole, like you just did there, Chappers, and feel happy with what they've done. It can take a really long time for them to finally come to that place where they're proud of themselves. Because after the Mayweather fight, he didn't want to go out. He felt like everybody knew. He felt that he let everybody down, that they were ashamed of him, that people were laughing at him. It was just this shattering blow to the ego. He gave 30 ,000 Brits the best few days of their lives that weekend. That was one of the iconic sports trips to be on.

20:41Mark Pougatch:I suppose for him, he's thrilled he's got fans and he's thrilled they're there. He wants to give them an even better time to come away with that win. And it didn't happen. And obviously, it's so hard to finish a career as a boxer, isn't it? And feel well-rounded, grounded and happy, it would seem. It is. It's very, very difficult. And I'm fascinated by it. And the answer really is that it's a very individual thing. In terms of the physicality of it, even, why somebody might appear to be more susceptible to a punch than somebody else's, almost on levels a spiritual thing if you just assume that they're all well-trained, which they are.

21:21Some people just seem to be able to refuse it almost, whereas with others it's something that happens. And how you react to it, how you react to a defeat, is something that you're never really going to know until it happens. There are so many unknowns in the sport until you experience them. And when it came to Ricky, the conclusion I kind of drew when I looked into all of this with the help of other people and I had a really interesting conversation with Steve Bunt about it is that he got a 43-0 when he boxed Mayweather there. And it wouldn't have been that he would have thought that he couldn't lose because he'd lost in the amateurs.

21:56He got knocked out in the amateurs. So he knew that it could happen. But you will get to a point in your career whereby you think, okay, well, I could lose, but it'll be a distance fight, a close fight, one of those ones where you don't get it on the cards. I would imagine he got to the point where he felt like, okay, that could happen, But I don't think he imagined that what could happen to him against Mayweather and then against Pacquiao, that that could happen. That that could happen because that would have been unthinkable, that you could get dismantled like that. And I think that was the thing that he really struggled with and he found very, very difficult to accept because that's not what happened to him.

22:36He did that to other people. and that's when the ego and the fragility of the ego, this thing that has served you so well and the pride and the self-belief that at times does have to border on a bit of delusion that has served you so well, all of a sudden that gets cracked and it's a very, very difficult thing to repair. Some people manage to do it, but if you get to that point in your career where you've achieved that much and then all of a sudden you're going for the very, very top prize and it looks like this other person is maybe just a bit too good for you, there's not really much consolation you can take in that.

23:11You know, we can talk about it, but we're not them, are we? They are this different kind of breed altogether, and it's a really hard way to live your life. I'm not jealous of it at all. You know, when I was a kid, like we all did, I'm sure you think, God, I'd love to play for England and do this and do that. But actually, when I look at what they have to give, I couldn't do that. I couldn't deconstruct my own life like that with that kind of harshness. It's a real price they pay. And yet, he was adored. He was adored. Not just in Manchester, but across the country. And one of the many articles I've read today saying, if you look at all the British boxers throughout the years, he is up there with, in the opinion of Rick Broadbent in the Times, up there with Cooper and Bruno as Britain's most loved boxer.

24:02Mark Pougatch:I was lucky enough to spend a day with him in 2008. we went up to make an inside sport episode for the BBC. So the whole day was with him basically going around. He wasn't in training for anything at the time, going to a gym, spending time at his house, looking at his three wheel car because he loved Only Fools and Horses, didn't he? And he had this yellow three wheeler that was apparently one of the originals that he'd bought in auction. And what struck me was just how rooted he was to his area. You know, there was no way he was going to buy himself a big mansion in Altrincham or something. He was going to buy the biggest house he could in the area that he was brought up in, basically.

24:41Mark Pougatch:He was not going to leave them. And everything was quite normal. I went into the house expecting some kind of Tyson-esque kind of gilded mansion with people serving him. And it was just all very normal. And he was. He wanted to go to the local cafe to have a bacon sandwich when we were filming. And he wasn't putting that on. There was no entourage around him. There was no manager there. It was just him opening the door to his house and making a cup of tea. And bear in mind, this is a year after the Mayweather fight. So he was kind of still very much in the peak of his powers and was just delightful.

25:19Mark Pougatch:That's what you could say, somebody who had charm and just a real person, which happens so rarely, Chappas, does it in our job to meet somebody on those terms absolutely it's sort of it sounds a ridiculous thing to say but you can't always fake authenticity and and at some point you know if you aren't being authentic and you are trying to be somebody that you are not the british sporting public in particular will see through you and will find you out and will not take you to the heart in the way that Ricky Hatton was taken to the heart to the British Sporting Public. And that was because he didn't fake a single thing.