War and Peace

by Ricky Hatton

  Backstage there was a nervous tingle in the air as my hands were wrapped. Everyone was saying, ‘Come on. You can do it, Ricky.’ Perhaps they believed it. I don’t think all of them did. Then Eamonn Magee barged in as I was getting ready.

  When I fought Magee I fucking hated him. The stuff he said, that I was only a little kid, that he’d sparred better people than me, that I was in with a man that time, all that disrespect, and I thought, ‘You fucking wanker.’ He taught me a lot, but I actually hated him and I’d never really seen him since I’d fought him three years before. All of a sudden he came charging through my changing-room door.

  ‘Don’t listen to all these who have written you off,’ he said. ‘Don’t listen to that “You’re gonna get beat and knocked out and all this and all that.” Tszyu’s not fought anyone like you. Let’s see how he does with you stuck to him like glue. Let’s see how he copes. If he doesn’t get you, it’s over. Believe it.’ He said everything to me that I was thinking, but there weren’t many people telling me that. It was exactly what I needed to hear. That dickhead from a couple of years earlier had gone, the real Magee was a lovely guy – hard as nails – but we became pals afterwards, with a friendship that stretched into retirement. He inspired me against Tszyu, that’s for sure.

  The stage was set. The fans had set it and so, it seemed, had fate. This was my destiny. I listened to Showtime announcer Jimmy Lennon introducing me as I stood behind the curtain and I walked to the ring first. Some people said that because I was fighting at home I should come out second, but I didn’t want to, I wanted to be first. I wanted to feel like the challenger. Everyone was writing me off but I was never frightened of a challenge. I’d rather get flattened trying.

  Everyone was singing in the arena. Everyone. Normally you might get a section of the crowd, but it was the whole lot, it looked like a carnival. The fans were cheering one of their own. With me, it wasn’t just a case of them cheering on a British fighter, but it was like they were pulling for a mate because they could always relate to me. I probably knew half the people that were there; either I’d had a pint with them or had a chat with them somewhere.

  People always say there was a packed house in the Manchester Arena for boxing when it had not been, but for Tszyu it was rammed. There was not a seat to be had and I’d never known anything like it. I gritted my teeth and thought, ‘Don’t let everyone say, “I told you so.”’

  I read everything beforehand; they thought I was going to get a kicking. No one picked me to win. ‘You’re not going to do it, Ricky.’ ‘Tszyu to win in three rounds.’ Tszyu to win in four.’ ‘Ricky will come marching on and be dead brave but he will walk onto a right hand.’ Brilliant. More motivation for me. I had a great relationship with the sporting press and they weren’t being nasty, they were only stating their opinion about who was going to win, but they proved to be one of my biggest drivers.

  Of course, I was more nervous than normal, but at the same time I was more geed up and excited than I ever had been. All that was going through my mind was that from day one I believed I would be a great world champion and if I didn’t achieve that then nothing else would satisfy me. ‘This is the day,’ I said to myself. ‘You’ve always said you were good enough to be in a fight like this. Don’t let your arse cave in now. This is your time.’ When I looked at myself and then at my opponents, I knew I could beat them – I would look at what I could do against them, and what I couldn’t. Only a handful of people shared my opinion about Tszyu. I believed I was going to murder him but most people thought I would be good for about four rounds. I couldn’t have disagreed more. ‘Am I missing something?’

  When I got into the ring I was so fired up. I was looking into the crowd at every opportunity, thriving on the atmosphere. ‘Come on!’ I yelled at them. Again and again. ‘Fucking come on!’ I roared, clenching my fists. I’d look in the crowd’s eyes and I could see the passion. It was like they were fighting with me. Me and my crowd; we had that type of relationship. It gave me a massive boost, it was visceral. Tszyu was the favourite but one look at this crowd – and at me for that matter – and you could tell he had a mountain to climb every bit as big as the one I was ready to ascend.

  Mindset. That is what it was. Of course conditioning plays a part, too. But I was always in condition. Billy saw to that.

  Tszyu – wearing black shorts had his hair tightly cropped with his familiar ponytail dropping down his back – and I came face to face in the ring. I stared at him; he didn’t look at me. Nerves? Maybe. Perhaps it was the occasion and the crowd. In his long career he had never faced anything like this. Manchester was united and it wanted him beaten.

  I went straight at him, but it wasn’t reckless like I was against Magee. I had learned and we had a strategy in place. I was getting early body shots in, smothering Tszyu, keeping him working, staying on his chest, jabbing so he couldn’t get set. ‘Keep working,’ I said. Busy, busy, busy. It was strength-sapping stuff. Yes, Tszyu was strong. I could feel that. But he was not as strong as me. I was pulling him, dragging him, nudging him. That was my plan. I cracked him on the back of the head to unsettle him early on, too. I would go inside and squeeze his arms, hug him and pull him. His arms weren’t tired later just from the pace of the fight but from the abuse they were taking. By the end of round one I had done more than some thought I was going to do in the whole fight, and in the corner Billy told me to stay close, and that when I was inside I didn’t even have to throw punches, just stop him from punching.

  If you look at Tszyu’s fights, they were never at the kind of pace I set off on; I wasn’t going to give him a moment’s rest, I couldn’t afford to. He was a murderous puncher and he always had people standing off him, so he wasn’t ready for this – he couldn’t get his leverage for shots. Some of the punches he landed, like a couple of uppercuts in round two, I felt. But he normally likes to ease himself into a fight and there was no chance of that here. He’d signed up for thirty-six minutes of hell.

  I was flying in the second round, so much so that the crowd started chanting ‘Easy, easy’ by the time the bell came to end the session. ‘Fucking hell, steady on,’ I thought. It was going well, but there was a long way to go.

  Going into the third round, he knew he had to raise his game. He had to hit me with some big punches to try and slow me down. After trying to drop the pace at the start of the fight so he could box in his comfort zone, because of how I was fighting, he had to raise it instead.

  I landed a body shot in round three and it knocked the wind out of him as he groaned; I didn’t let up. I wasn’t sure if I had won the session because he was an accurate puncher and scoring occasionally: ‘Did I win that round, Billy?’ I asked. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, ice-cool, ‘it’s served its purpose. He worked his nuts off that round.’

  In the fourth Tszyu even threw a six-punch combination. He never did that usually, but it was the only way he could keep me off. Even then he just couldn’t get away.

  The champion probably banked rounds three, four, five and maybe six – but to do that, Billy was right, Kostya had had to work his bollocks off. He had no respite. I just didn’t leave him alone.

  Some people were amazed that he was giving ground, but I knew I would be physically stronger than him, I’d had no doubts about that. That’s why we were confident sitting on his chest. It was the single punch at distance I had to watch. Tszyu was going backwards and I was dragging him on, squeezing him and he couldn’t get his heavy shots off. Then he started to throw a curving right hand to start each round because he never had the space to get his full leverage. Yes, he was making my ears ring still with his power but I was going through them. Make him pay, make him work. Billy and I agreed that if we were going to lose a round, or lose some rounds, we wanted him to work harder than he’d ever worked in his fucking life because you simply can’t keep it up for twelve rounds.

  ‘You know what, Ricky,’ Billy said before the fifth. ‘There are rounds you are going to lose and
he is going to bank. He might win a couple but don’t get disheartened. Even if you lose four on the bounce, think how hard he is working to bank those rounds.’

  There were many who didn’t think I would hear the bell for round five but he’d had to work hard to see the fifth commence himself. A twelve-round fight is about knowing when to put your foot on the gas, when to have a rest, when to nick a break. It’s a long time. Some people thought there was no method to my madness but there was. It looked reckless, I know, but as I was going in I was half jabbing, half rolling, taking a shot with half a shoulder, half catching his shots. He nailed me clean a couple of times but more often than not they were cuffing shots that I managed to get something on while I suffocated him so he couldn’t get the momentum. The right hand he’d flattened Judah and Mitchell with was bouncing off me. The tactics were working perfectly.

  I started to bully and maul him, which nobody did because he was this great punching machine. They had too much respect for him. Maybe he expected me to charge out carelessly and his training team probably would have told him I would come marching out like a headless chicken, perhaps overexcited on the big night. ‘Don’t worry, Kostya,’ I reckon they would have said, ‘put that right hand down the pipe. It will soon stop him in his tracks.’ As the rounds progressed, four, five, six, and I was still there, still coming, still a hundred miles an hour. I can imagine Johnny Lewis in Tszyu’s corner thinking, ‘Fucking hell, this is not how we saw it.’

  While Tszyu took some of those middle rounds, he was grafting his arse off and paying a price. He started cocking his right hand, instead of throwing it straight like he always did, because I was constantly on him so quickly. That took more sting out of it as he became increasingly desperate to land his pet punch and end the fight. Billy was getting mad at me charging out of the corner onto that right hand. ‘He’s doing it every time!’ he shouted. ‘Get out of the fucking way.’ I was on Tszyu so quickly he’d come out and just go ‘Bang’. He’d hit me every time. I would go right through it but Billy kept saying to me, ‘Ricky, you know what he’s gonna do, why do you keep running into it? You’re just that little too eager to get at him.’ The only thing I could put it down to was the atmosphere. It was a special concoction of anxiety and excitement in the same breath.

  Sometimes Tszyu hit me and my legs went a little bit stiff and I thought, ‘Oof, fucking hell.’ But all I could think was, ‘Don’t let it happen, don’t let them win. They said you were going to cave in.’

  He managed to tag me with a right hand in round five but I took it, dropped my hands, shouted ‘Come on’ and marched forwards. I wanted to break his heart. When he scored with that right he must have thought, ‘Jeez, what have we got here? Fucking lunatic.’ He was out of his comfort zone the whole time, and he’d probably never fought at that pace in his whole career. But with how I fight it was just another Saturday night for me.

  I bombed out for the sixth and Tszyu started looking to the referee for help. That whirlwind start to the fight had the crowd roaring but the fans had gone a little quieter by now after he had captured those middle rounds. Still, the boxing anoraks would have noticed that Kostya was fighting with his mouth open, gulping for air.

  ‘Great, keep doing what you’re doing. Stay on his chest,’ said Billy. He was calm in the corner. We knew it was working, while Kostya’s team was yelling at each other to get their man water. They could see the energy draining out of him. With the seventh about to get underway I was bouncing up and down. Tszyu trudged out into the battlefield. ‘Keep going, keep going,’ I said to myself.

  He was marking underneath his right eye but he punched me low and I hit the canvas. The timekeeper picked up the count and I thought the worst. It was not a legitimate knockdown, it was a low blow. It wasn’t pleasant to take and not far off the Crown Jewels, but a shot on the groin guard – straight and direct – is not the worst thing in the world. If it comes at an angle where it goes across your knackers, it goes without saying it can be a real killer. The referee, Dave Parris, saw that and stopped the count. It was not a knockdown.

  Phew. The fans started belting out ‘There’s only one Ricky Hatton.’ Loudly.

  I tumbled to the canvas later on in the round as it got messy, and it took an extra effort to get back to my feet, such was the pace of the fight. It was hard, like climbing a small mountain.

  Round nine was underway and things were significantly different. He was really struggling. ‘Fucking hell. I’ve got him here,’ I thought. Tszyu must have wondered what he had to do to keep me off. I could hear him breathing heavily when we were on the inside. It was laboured and I knew he was struggling. His mouth was open, his jaw was swelling. Knowing that he was finding it so hard gave me an extra spring in my step, I could see him dwindling so I got a second wind. I was letting more shots go, thinking, ‘I’ve got you here, haven’t I?’ I was sidestepping more, my feet were a bit quicker and Tszyu’s tank was running low. I was bullying him. I could smell blood and was nailing him with heavy shots; his face was becoming increasingly battered as I caught him more and more easily.

  I knew. You could see the tactics were working and, as I was coming on again, he was almost gone. The crowd was on fire now, their mid-rounds murmuring was long-since gone.

  Then, in the ninth, I purposefully smashed him below the belt and Tszyu was in real pain. It was a left hook, not a straight shot, and I reckon it nearly crippled him. He had hit me low several times and I’d finally had enough. He was seriously feeling the pace before then but that punch took a lot out of him. It had to have done. I went back to a corner while the referee assessed Kostya. ‘What’s going on? What are you doing?’ shouted Tszyu’s team at me as I looked out to them. Dave Parris came over to me and said, ‘Keep the shots up.’ I replied, ‘Dave, he’s already given me four low ones!’ I think he knew, too. He could have taken a point off Tszyu for his earlier low blows. People make a bigger deal about mine but he’d had some warnings already.

  After round nine I said to Billy, ‘He’s mine. He’s blowing like fuck.’ Earlier, I had been landing but you could say the better quality work was from Tszyu, although my work rate was keeping me in it. Now my punches were quality shots and finding the target regularly. It remained edge-of-the-seat stuff, though, because he was still Kostya Tszyu and, with his punching power, one shot and that could have been it.

  Round ten started and I was straight after him. If you put yourself in Johnny Lewis’s shoes, in Kostya’s corner, you would think, ‘Jeez, this guy has a second wind here. Kostya is not hitting him or hurting him. My man’s breathing heavily in the corner. He’s blowing out of his arse and this fella’s just getting started again. And he’s hurting Kostya now.’ Tszyu was bobbing around the ring a bit, he was running on pride and I was all over him. There was no stopping me and the crowd was going potty. Kostya’s punches didn’t have much on them any more and I was even beating him to the right hand. He couldn’t get a foothold. As the tenth round neared the end, and with Tszyu in real trouble, he threw a desperate right hand and left hook. Boom. Boom. They landed all right, but they didn’t stop me. ‘See,’ said Billy, ‘this is what we talked about. There’s nothing left now. You’ve got to work your balls off.’

  I knew I had him when the eleventh started but I was aware I had to be careful, I just had to keep my foot on the gas. I had to keep punching and punching and as the round neared an end he had one last burst, throwing about six punches, and I think he hanged himself doing that. It took more out of him than it did me. I replied with a body shot and that was his last hurrah. I swarmed him, using every ounce of drive and energy, pounding him around the ring, and when I stormed back to my corner at the end of round – utterly exhausted – I spat my gumshield out on the floor to gulp in as much air as possible. Fucking hell. I thought my lungs were going to explode. ‘You’ve got him, you’ve got him!’ shouted Billy. I knew it. Everyone did. I had three minutes left to press my advantage.

  ‘Come on, Rick,’ I said t
o myself. ‘One last round. Just try and summon one last bit of energy.’ I gasped for air and peered around Billy’s shoulder. The referee had been to see Tszyu and as Dave Parris turned around, he waved it off. The fight was over. ‘Oh Jesus. I’ve done it. Thank God I haven’t got to go back out there,’ I thought. For Tszyu to quit on his stool at the end of the eleventh tells you: ‘I can’t take any more.’

  I just hadn’t left him alone and was ahead on all three scorecards: Spanish judge Manuel Maritxalar had me one point up, 105–104; Frenchman Alfred Asaro had me up by three, 106–103; and the card of American official Don Ackerman was 107–102.

  I dropped to the canvas in tears, Billy jumped on top of me. I can’t remember much but I know it was bedlam in there. I stumbled back to my feet on a tide of disbelief and jumped out of the ring to hug my mum and dad and Matthew.

  From the first day I’d walked through the gym door at the age of ten it’s all I had dreamed of, being the best in the world. Incredible. This was what it had all been about. Somehow I had enough strength once I was back in the ring to leap up and down. I have no idea where that came from, but I asked my fans to stop chanting ‘You’re not singing any more’ at Kostya. He was a proud champion and he had probably thought if he was ever going to get beaten he probably would have been outboxed, not outmanned and finishing on his stool.

  Physically, I couldn’t have been far behind him, but I had that burning desire that meant I was not even thinking about it. I probably could have done twenty rounds that night with the determination and motivation I had. And although Kostya lost you can’t say it was a bad performance by him. It was an absolute war.

  Paul Speak handed me my Ricky Fatton T-shirt and I looked at the press row, where those who had written me off and said I could not lose so much weight and beat Tszyu, were writing tomorrow’s headlines. I waved at them.