by Ricky Hatton
I failed to impress and the worrying thing was that Lazcano wasn’t really a puncher yet he shook me up twice, in rounds eight and ten, and all sorts of things started running through my mind. ‘God, I’ve been knocked out by Floyd, can I take a punch now?’ I started doubting myself. He didn’t hurt me to the extent that Vince Phillips did, but he wasn’t the puncher Vince was either. My knees dipped a bit, although I knew enough to be able to slip, slide and survive the moment, and when I did get tagged I never really thought I was going to get knocked out. My head was pretty clear, but Lazcano had spent most of his career at lightweight so they were worrying signs for me. The fight raised more questions than answers, but it was answers that I needed.
When the bell sounded at the end of the fight, I felt like I was going to a funeral. The fans seemed happy, but I’m never usually happy with my performance and it’s fair to say I wasn’t pleased with this. Even after the Kostya Tsyzu fight I’d said to myself, ‘Well, I could have done better. I could have done some things differently.’ Then people would say, ‘Shut up, you dick-head.’ But after the Lazcano fight I knew no one would be joking. I had wanted a performance that would make people’s hair stand on end, an explosive knockout or a really clear-cut win. I won widely on the scorecards but I wanted people to say, ‘Wow, that loss to Floyd hasn’t halted Ricky’s progress.’ But it actually looked like it had. That’s exactly how it looked. As a consequence people started to say, ‘Maybe he should hang them up.’
Me and Billy thought we were going to bounce back stronger and then all of a sudden there were doubts. I was worried. I think we were all concerned. About the only positive was that I’d boxed at the City of Manchester Stadium with a great atmosphere on a mega occasion.
As the days ticked by after the fight, some members of the team started saying to me, ‘You’ve been beaten by Mayweather, you didn’t look the best against Lazcano. If you want to carry on your career, you’ve got to leave Billy. He’s not the same. He needs to have injections in his hands or in his elbows before he does the pads. He’s not as quick as he used to be.’
Billy told me not to worry, but it was eating away at me and I started wondering if people had a point. Most fighters would have taken heart from boxing in a stadium like Eastlands, filling it and living a dream. It was a sad time for me, though, as it made me realize that me and Billy had come to an end. Those nagging doubts from the Mayweather fight had stayed with me.
I felt uncertain about what to do, and Billy invited me to a pub for a pint one afternoon. ‘Listen, Rick,’ he began. ‘You’re showing signs of wear and tear. You were hurt by Lazcano. Maybe you should contemplate retirement.’ Billy was right to ask the question, but when he put it to me I was struggling with my self-esteem. It was a bad time for me. I was twenty-nine years old but I guess Billy was looking at it and judging it by the fights I’d had. There’d been so many hard battles, including a few ding-dongs in my early days, then some tough ones as the WBU champion, then Tszyu and after him there was Maussa, Castillo and the knockout to Mayweather. Maybe Billy was looking at it and saying, ‘Ricky has nothing more to do or achieve. Financially he’s done really well for himself.’ Perhaps that’s what Billy was seeing, that there was evidence I was past my best; basically it felt like he was saying, ‘You could come back stronger than ever, but what’s the point?’
I didn’t agree but it got me thinking. ‘Before I retire,’ I thought, ‘I need to know I’ve given my career my best shot.’ I would go in the gym and say, ‘What are we doing, Billy? Are we doing eight rounds on the pads?’
He’d reply, ‘Yeah, I’ve had my needle. I should be able to get eight rounds out.’
Should? It’s not what I want to hear if I’m training for a world title. It told me. He was having injections in his hands to numb the area and he was saying, ‘You’re hitting hard, Ricky’ – and I was thinking, ‘How do you know? How can you tell? You can’t feel it.’
There was a coach called Lee Beard who came into the gym and I said, ‘Billy, because of your hands and your injuries, why don’t you teach Lee how you want the pads doing, how you want the bodybelt done? Why don’t you mould him into you? I could do the pads with Lee and you can stand on the outside and advise me.’
He replied, ‘No, no one can do it better than me. I’m the man with the bodybelt.’
I would have loved to finish my career with Billy and stayed with him to the end. It wasn’t his fault, it was just Father Time – it catches up with all of us.
So, one day, I remember going to the gym and saying, ‘Billy, I think we’re going to have to part company, mate. It breaks my heart to do this.’ I was choking the tears back. I told him that, having been beaten by Mayweather and not looking my best in the Lazcano fight, if I was going to continue with my career I needed to give it the best chance possible and I didn’t think that was with him. He said, ‘Well, I disagree.’
It was terrible.
Everything in my heart told me I wanted him to say, ‘Yeah, you’re right, Rick. I can’t get through workouts without injections in my hands and elbows. You’re probably right. Good luck to you, son.’ That’s how I wanted it to go.
Instead, it was along the lines of, ‘Okay, Rick, if that’s what you want to do . . . If that’s your decision, that’s your fucking decision.’
I saw it going completely differently from how it actually went. The meeting did not end how I wanted it to either: I shook his hand, walked out, got in the car and cried buckets.
Billy loved me, I know that; I heard him say afterwards it ruined our fairy tale and unfortunately it did. I didn’t think he was fair with me. He was falling to bits. Sky filmed a documentary series called At Home with the Hattons before the Lazcano fight and it was about my family and how close-knit we all were. During the show, Billy had said, ‘Experience-wise I’m at my absolute peak. Physically I’m falling to bits.’ When I said I wanted to leave him he sort-of back-pedalled: ‘No, no, no. I’m fine, me.’ But your hands are only going to be as fast as the fella who’s holding the pads for you. Billy was getting older, it’s not his fault. When I joined him as a youngster the padwork sounded like machine-gun fire, but at the end he was struggling. To this day, I would say to him, ‘You knew you were gone.’ If he looked in the mirror and genuinely asked himself the question, I think he’d know it wasn’t there any more – you can’t be having injections and be thinking you’re the same as you were. It just doesn’t happen.
One of the saddest parts of my life was falling out with Billy. We had been best mates in the early days, we’d nothing, we’d done runners from hotels, had so many good times, getting pissed up; he wasn’t just a coach, he was my best mate.
When I first turned pro there had been Steve Foster, Ensley Bingham, Maurice Core, Peter Judson, Carl Thompson, Paul Burke, Chris Barnet, Andy Holligan. In the gym it was packed and I was surrounded by champions. Then, later on, there was Anthony Farnell, Matthew Macklin, Paul Smith, Stephen Bell and our Matthew. It was brilliant; we had a right laugh in that gym. Along came Kerry Kayes, and there was another trainer – Bobby Rimmer. We would put our food in the fridge there before we trained and once I went to get mine after a workout and Bobby had eaten it, the fat bastard. So I went in the changing rooms, took all his clothes off the pegs, his shoes, bag and everything like that and chucked it in the shower and turned the water on. Then I went downstairs and turned the seats upside-down in his car, put shower gel all over his windows and took all of the water out of his wipers so he couldn’t clear it.
But that’s what it was like there. You had to be on your guard all the time. They were good days. We were all training, all working hard, but eventually everyone left. Macklin left, Paul Smith left, Stephen Bell left. Even our Matthew left and there was only me and Billy. You’ll never convince Billy, but they all left for a reason. He couldn’t do what he did years ago and bit by bit they all left. I was the last one. I still would have stayed with him if he was up to the job but I just felt he no longer
was.
To get away from everything I went on holiday to Tenerife, and my dad phoned me while I was over there. ‘Ricky, Bill’s suing you.’
‘What? What is he suing me for?’ I said, stunned. He was claiming I had not paid him enough for the Mayweather fight.
It is an understatement to say I was disappointed. I felt that I’d always been honest with Billy, always paid him what he’d been entitled to and I was a little bit miffed that when I said I was going to leave he said I hadn’t paid him the right amounts after the Mayweather fight. ‘Hold on, Billy,’ I thought, ‘we’ve had another fight since, the Lazcano fight at Man City. Why did you not mention it then? Why is it now I’ve left you’re suing me for a fight that was nearly twelve months ago?’ But Billy was also suing with respect to Lazcano. The court case dragged and dragged.
Once a fighter’s purse exceeds £100,000 the trainer’s fee is supposed to be negotiable but I said I would give him ten per cent all the way through. I have no doubt he was one of the best-paid trainers the sport has seen. Oscar De La Hoya sounded shocked when he said, ‘You give him ten per cent?’
I said, ‘Yeah, I shook his hand and we agreed to it.’
From those early £3,000-per-fight nights to the bouts that made us millions, I told my dad to pay Billy ten per cent, always.
My dad was handling my finances, as he always had done, and he used to deal with Billy and I just used to check with my dad. ‘Ten per cent, Dad?’
‘Yes, son.’
‘And Billy’s happy.’
‘Yeah.’ Billy was always happy I thought. But there was an issue with what revenue Billy’s ten per cent attached to and what had been agreed.
It was the last thing I ever wanted to go through with him. I thought the world of him and I know he thought the same of me. No longer being with Billy left a huge emotional hole, as well as a vacancy to fill.
Although Paulie Malignaggi had not looked a million dollars on the undercard of me against Lazcano, our match was confirmed for November in Las Vegas, and I needed to find a new trainer. Me and Jennifer went on holiday to Vegas and Lee Beard, who was training Matthew at the time, said, ‘Why don’t you go and see Floyd Mayweather Sr – I’ve got his number.’
So I visited Floyd in the gym, we spoke and I didn’t just see him on the pads – which he was very good on – but his defensive work also caught my eye – the way he taught catching shots, rolling, sliding, rolling and coming back with a counter. My training had always been a hundred miles an hour and I’d never concentrated fully on the punches coming back. I thought maybe he wouldn’t change me completely, but I liked it that he was a character, enthusiastic and the stuff he was saying to me hit home so much so that, when I came back to see Jennifer by the pool, I’d been there all day and was late, as usual. She said, ‘How long have you been?’
‘I think I like him,’ I replied.
There was no rhyme or reason behind my going with Floyd; I wanted to add a few new facets to my game. We never talked about me fighting his son again – it was during one of the many periods when Floyd Sr and Floyd Jr were not on speaking terms – but I thought that maybe, having done all that attacking on the bodybelt for so many years, I would focus more on timing, defence, and catching shots with Floyd Sr. So, one fight after losing to Floyd Mayweather as a fighter, I hired his father, who had taught him how to box, as my trainer.
I was looking forward to doing his padwork. It was not as physical as Billy’s and seemingly much faster. I don’t think Floyd Sr was any better than Billy, but the new change and perspective revitalized me.
Billy had been saying I was showing wear and tear, and maybe that was the case, but against Malignaggi I felt I could put it right. Perhaps the damage was done. Maybe it was the defeat against Mayweather, maybe it was getting shaken up by Lazcano. Maybe it was the depression. Maybe the damage was done as far as my confidence was concerned, when you think that there had been clear signs of me slipping.
But for Malignaggi, training went absolutely perfectly. Floyd Sr came over to England for a couple of weeks, then we did a few weeks in Vegas – I stayed at the same apartment I had used for the Castillo and Mayweather fights – and it was perfect. A new trainer, a new atmosphere in the camp, it gave me the extra lift. Going into the Malignaggi fight I was sure that the only person who could beat me would be able to punch a bit, stop me in my tracks. You need to be able to stop me, and, as talented and fast as Paulie was, he didn’t have the power to hold me off.
I tell fighters who I train now that if you have one of those stocky lads who comes at you then you can run and run all you want but sooner or later you need to plant your feet and crack them. Hard. There was nothing worse for me than me trying to cut the ring off and being drilled down the middle with big shots. I figured Malignaggi, as someone who couldn’t punch hard, wasn’t capable of that. The thinking was that even though I had been beaten by Mayweather at welterweight, I had to have a fight at light-welterweight to get ranked there again. That was the Lazcano one. Then, as soon as that happened I wanted to fight my nearest rival, and that was Malignaggi. I was considered number one, Malignaggi was number two. I wanted to prove I was still the best, and in order to do that I had to beat him. And when I boxed Lazcano, Malignaggi had fought Ndou on the City of Manchester bill, so it was always likely we would fight providing we both won.
Malignaggi was one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. He had ability and determination. He had a thumping from Miguel Cotto, a bad beating when he got his jaw broken, and he had a thumping from me, but he achieved a lot. There is a lot to admire about him. He can’t punch and I think he’d admit that; but to become a world champion in two weight classes you need more abilities than just punching power – it can’t just be speed, the same way it can’t just be fitness, ability or power. You’ve got to have more strings to your bow.
One of his other attributes, if you would call it that, was the way he would hype a fight by talking crap to his opponents. But his smack talk didn’t get under my skin. I’d already worked with the grandmaster of bullshit in Floyd Mayweather Jr. Even though Paulie came up with some shit, and that’s what it was half the time, when you’ve had to do a 24/7 tour with Floyd Mayweather Jr across two continents, and you have had countless press conferences and the weigh-in to deal with, what Paulie Malignaggi did was very timid. Very timid. I had moved on from all that. Maybe Floyd did get under my skin more than I’d care to admit, but if you make a mistake you don’t do it again, do you?
So when Paulie started talking rubbish, I just laughed, ‘Okay, Paulie.’ He didn’t really mention the Lazcano fight to me because he hadn’t looked too great himself against Lovemore. He couldn’t have had too many bullets to fire after that, but he made quite a lot of me losing to Floyd and the Mayweather Sr partnership, saying ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ after I’d said I’d been working on my defence more. ‘You’re ready for the taking, your best days are behind you,’ he said. That was the road he was going down. Part of me wondered if he was right, though I was determined to prove him wrong.
I had two new supporters in tow, as Noel and Liam Gallagher, of Oasis, carried my belts into the ring for the fight back at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. I had first met Liam when I was going to Atlantic City for Gatti–Mayweather. Me and a mate stopped in New York first, and we stayed there for a couple of days; after going to a few bars we wound up in an Irish pub. We found the place filled with people wearing City shirts. ‘What’s going on here?’ I asked. It turned out Oasis were playing at Madison Square Garden and the people in the bar said Liam and Noel were always in and out of there. We went there the next day and from the bar we saw a big group of lads, and there was one guy with a floppy hat similar to the ones I wear all the time and I said to my mate, ‘Is that Liam, there?’
Liam got up and swaggered to the toilet, arms out by his sides, as he does, and I was there with a City shirt on and the next thing I knew Liam comes by, lifts the front of his hat up and
says, ‘Oi, Ricky Hatton. Come over here, you fucker. Come here and have a drink.’ My jaw almost hit the floor – people from the band I’d always listened to recognized me. I went and sat with Liam and Noel. Your heroes are always your heroes, no matter what success you might have individually; I’m friends with them both today and privileged to say so. Not just them either – if any of the City players come up to me these days, I’m just on my knees in awe; that’s the way it always will be. Noel and Liam can’t do anything wrong in my eyes. I’ll always see myself as that little kid who stood on the Kippax stand at Maine Road with a pie and a Bovril and listening to Oasis when I was running. I’m still that person now.
We kept in touch over the years, and when I asked if they’d carry the belts in they said, ‘Fucking right, we’d love to do that.’ It was ticking another box, having the guys I’d listened to all my life do that for me. They were my musical heroes. Before anyone knew who I was I just loved their music and it was unbelievable for me, them carrying the belts in.
There was still much to prove in the ring, though, as I returned to the scene of the Floyd Mayweather defeat, at the same Las Vegas hotel. The tactics were to put the pressure on Malignaggi, use the jab. He’s very fast and so I needed to use better footwork and an improved jab. The only chance Paulie had would be if I stood off him, so he could make the most of his hand speed. We had to march him down, catch more shots on the gloves and keep the pressure on. Eventually, we thought I’d be too physical and too strong for him to keep us off.
In the first round he was moving and moving and he caught me with a right cross. He didn’t hurt me in the slightest, but the speed of it was amazing. There probably was not much to pick and choose between his speed and Floyd’s, although Floyd hit a lot harder.
Then, in the second round, I caught him with a right hook and he was genuinely hurt. I followed up with a barrage of punches and he managed to get through the round but I hurt him again several times as the fight wore on.