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Jul 02, 2023

Hatton: A hard

Dan Dewsbury’s excellent film charts the meteoric rise and sad implosion of boxer Ricky Hatton Boxer Ricky Hatton is the subject of a brutally honest, no-holds-barred new documentary. Photo: Sky As

Dan Dewsbury’s excellent film charts the meteoric rise and sad implosion of boxer Ricky Hatton

Boxer Ricky Hatton is the subject of a brutally honest, no-holds-barred new documentary. Photo: Sky

As the old saying goes, you can pick your friends but not your family. The feature-length documentary Hatton (Sky Documentaries, Thursday; also available on demand) is as much about family and friends and the painful choices one has to make as it is about boxing.

Dan Dewsbury’s excellent film charting the meteoric rise and sad implosion of boxer Ricky Hatton features plenty of electrifying boxing footage, not least the then unfancied Mancunian’s astonishing demolition of Kostya Tszyu to become the light-welterweight champion of the world in 2005.

The film, however, pays scant attention to Hatton’s other title wins. The real focus is on how he was caught between the pull of his family and his most trusted ally. The ensuing rifts played a part in pushing him to the brink of suicide.

In the red corner are his parents, Carol and Ray — Ray was also Hatton’s manager. In the blue, his former coach Billy “The Preacher” Graham, who knew he had something special on his hands the moment he saw Hatton, then a young boy, in the ring at his gym.

Observers considered Hatton and Graham a boxing match made in heaven. But that seemingly unbreakable bond would later be painfully severed.

Watching from outside the ring is Jennifer Dooley, Hatton’s ex-fiancée and the mother of two of his three children. She made the difficult decision to walk away when she realised she couldn’t rescue him from the pit of drink, drugs and depression he’d fallen into, a period in his life that the once emotionally buttoned-up Hatton — who’s become an advocate for men sharing their feelings — now talks about with brutal honesty.

“I was leaving when he needed me,” she admits, “but it was a choice between peace or chaos, and I couldn’t choose chaos anymore.”

It’s Jennifer who remarks that “Billy was like a second father to Ricky” — an observation that would no doubt rankle with Ray.

Hatton was on top of the world after beating Tszyu, yet the boxer’s greatest triumph was also the moment when everything started to unravel.

Hatton was on top of the world after beating Tszyu, yet Frank Warren, who promoted the bout, suggests the boxer’s greatest triumph was also the moment when everything started to unravel.

He points the finger of blame at Ray, who he says came to him demanding more money. Ray himself recalls telling Warren: “I’m selling a diamond, not a quartz.”

Warren promptly told him where he could put his diamond. “That was when the lunatics took over the asylum,” says Billy Graham, who claims Ray always wanted to get rid of him.

It appears Hatton Jr, who was basking in the sudden attention (photoshoots with leggy models, chat show appearances, an MBE), had changed too.

At the weigh-in for his next fight, a glamour bout against Floyd Mayweather Jr at Las Vegas’s MGM Grand Hotel in front of a huge crowd studded with Hollywood movie stars, Hatton made a throat-slitting gesture to his opponent.

The Ricky Hatton of old, says veteran boxing writer and broadcaster Steve Bunce, who was there, would never have succumbed to trash-talking theatrics. Bunce remembers thinking, “Oh, bollocks — he’s been sucked in! He’s bought into it!”

Mayweather put Hatton down twice, inflicting the first defeat of his 44-fight career. It sent Hatton into a frenzied spiral that hit rock bottom when the News of the World carried a picture of him snorting coke in a pub toilet on its front page.

Predictably, Ray blamed Graham. Hatton agreed to fire him, a rash decision he seems to regret. “I f***ing loved him, you know what I mean?” he says.

Graham, who vanished from boxing, lives a secluded life and only agreed to appear in the documentary after repeated requests, is also clearly pained by the split.

Bizarrely, after Graham left, Hatton hired Mayweather’s father, the eccentric Floyd Sr, as his new coach. “I was crumbling as a person,” he says.

There was more rancour to come. Graham took Ray to court, claiming he’d skimmed money that was rightfully his. Ray claimed the shortfall was due to him putting money into a trust fund for his son’s family.

Hatton didn’t believe his father and ended up estranged from his parents for eight years. They’ve since had an uneasy reconciliation, but you’re left feeling the relationship that most deserves repairing is the one between Hatton and Graham. They were always better together than apart.