One for the Road: Only one Ricky Hatton

If this week’s Ulster Herald seems to carry more Ricky Hatton coverage than Monday’s Manchester Evening Standard, it’s only a reflection of the deep, personal love that so many people felt for the two-weight world champ they called The Hitman.

Ricky’s popularity – as a man as much as a boxer – eclipsed pretty much anything the sport had seen before or has seen since.

Sheffield loved Prince Naseem Hamed.

Nottingham backed Carl Froch.

Leeds continues to sing for Josh Warrington.

And all of England adored Their ‘Enry.

It is no secret how much boxing can inspire people. While it might look like two men beating lumps out of each other, it’s always more than that.

We need look no further than our own Carl Frampton.

John Hume and David Trimble might have brought peace to the North, but it took Carl Frampton’s nights in the Odyssey to bring unity to it.

And yet, even that kind of love and loyalty was surpassed by Ricky Hatton. His ability to excite, inspire, mobilise and give voice to an army of fans was the stuff of legends.

And it was right what those 30,000 fans cried out as they followed him through the streets of Las Vegas: ‘There’s only one Ricky Hatton! There’s only one Ricky Hatton!’

On Sunday morning, I’m sure many of those same men and women – the ones who spent months’ worth of wages to stand behind him on his biggest transatlantic night – woke to hear those five words echo in their ears again.

‘There’s only one Ricky Hatton!

Only now, it’s not just a song – but an epitaph, too.

When I heard the news, I thought: the world of boxing will never be the same again.

A light has most certainly gone out.

A man will be forever missing from the table where the great personalities of the sport should always sit.

A table where Floyd Mayweather would not have his arse on the chair before the tremendous arms of a big, laughing Frank Bruno were wrapped around him, escorting him towards the door.

Before the bell goes, when the ring announcer is introducing the fighters, often he’ll say that so-and-so is ‘the fighting pride’ of wherever they are from.

In Ricky’s early days he was the fighting pride of Hyde.

Then, as his career caught fire and his following grew, he was the fighting pride of Manchester.

Then, by the time he was world champion, he was the fighting pride of England.

But what we’ve seen since his tragic death is that millions of people across the world were proud of Ricky.

He really was the people’s champion. He was a working class. The fighting pride of normal people everywhere.

They were proud of him when he got off the canvas for the first time to beat Belfast’s Terminator, Eamonn Magee.

They were proud of him when, in the eleventh round, he broke the will of IBF light-welterweight champion and one of the pound-for-pound best of his day, Kostya Tszyu – and possibly even prouder when he celebrated his win by taking his Russian-Australian opponent back to his local pub in Hyde to go on the rip with all his friends and family.

They were proud of him during the four fight win streak that followed.

Proud when he put on a game performance against Mayweather.

Proud when he came back and put manners on Paulie Malignaggi.

And devastated for him when he got beat by Manny Pacquiao – who, alongside Mayweather, was the finest boxer of the era.

When his career ended, people were as proud of Ricky as ever; be it for his work as coach of his brother Matthew and son Campbell, as well as other boxers; as a family man; or as an inspiration to mental sufferers everywhere.

But compared to those big nights in Manchester, when a chorus of Blue Moon resounded through the city, maybe we didn’t have the same opportunity after his retirement to regularly remind him how much we loved him.

And maybe Ricky missed that.

He definitely missed the buzz of fight night, the sound of those body shots sapping an opponent, the roar of rowdy the crowd and the party that last inevitably followed.

Sure who didn’t?

Ricky, if you’re still about, I hope you now see how much you meant to people.

You made us feel like friends, not fans.

To repeat what many others have already said: There is, and only ever will be, one Ricky Hatton.