All around me people were falling asleep, their eyes closed and their mouths open. It was not because of boredom or a lack of interest that they had logged off, more because the excitement of what was to come had exhausted them. It was also late. Really late. It had now gone midnight, in fact, and the fight had yet to even start. Some of the natives were understandably restless. Others were just resting. “Wake me up before ‘Blue Moon’,” I heard one man say to his son, and he would, too, with a gentle nudge.
In the meantime, visible on big screens and inside a small ring were two boxers scrapping in an undercard fight. They did their best to distract and kill time, this pair, but there was only so much they alone could do. More interesting than that was what was happening around the ring, where Showtime, the US TV network, were only now starting to get their crew in position to do their preamble to camera. It was for them and their American audience we were all being made to wait, of course. It was on their account scores of Brits were falling asleep in the nosebleed section at the Manchester Evening News (M.E.N) Arena in early June.
If nothing else, it was at least quiet up there, remote. In the lower tiers, and at ringside, remaining inconspicuous while sleeping would have been rather difficult. Yet, up in the nosebleeds, it was easy. Too easy. “Just resting my eyes,” was how my father described his own attempt, to which I said, “Don’t you dare.” For I knew how far we had both travelled and how long we had waited. We had done 11 rounds. We couldn’t then quit before the 12th.
Under normal circumstances, Ricky Hatton, the antidote to fatigue, would have been fighting closer to 10pm, a more civilised hour, and that would have given his Manchester fans licence to drink beforehand, eat a meal, attend the fight, and then perhaps go out again afterwards. This, however, was a special kind of fight and therefore a different kind of night. This time, if they wanted to see their man fight the best the world had to offer, they had to make some tiny adjustments and sacrifices of their own. Meaning: in order to experience the great Kostya Tszyu in the flesh, they had to prove how much they wanted it. They had to first beat the rush to get tickets and they had to then turn up on June 4, 2005 for a main event that would not take place until the wee small hours of June 5.
In other words, while Hatton managed to retain some of his home comforts the night he stepped up, he could not retain all of them. As good as it was dragging Tszyu, the champion, to England, there were still enough alien elements to the occasion to ensure Hatton and his legion of fans were under no illusion as to the magnitude of what was about to happen.
Most people, it’s true, only had to watch Kostya Tszyu perform to realize that. In his last fight against Sharmba Mitchell, for example, Tszyu had not only bettered a previous result against the same opponent but looked arguably sharper and more devastating than ever. Without moving out of first gear, he stopped Mitchell in just three rounds. He lined him up repeatedly for that destructive right hand of his and demonstrated supreme finishing instincts the moment he sensed Mitchell wilt. It was quick, it was decisive, and it would have been hard for fans of Ricky Hatton not to torment themselves by imagining the damage that Tszyu right hand could do to someone as busy and hittable as the “Hitman”.
Back then, you see, for all his attacking prowess, nobody could be sure how Hatton would react or cope with it. His previous fight, a 10th-round stoppage of the veteran Ray Oliveira, was far from adequate preparation for what he would encounter in the form of Tszyu. That much we knew. The same could be said, too, of the fights prior to the Oliveira one, against Michael Stewart, Carlos Vilches, and Dennis Pederson, all of which helped to enhance Hatton’s record but did little to convince anybody that he was ready to now jump up and fight the best in the world. In fact, only his record – 38-0 at the time – and his protracted and somewhat draining relationship with the WBU (World Boxing Union) light-welterweight title, which he held for four years, had people itching to see what would happen when Hatton eventually joined the big league. Some, when the time came, felt he would flourish, and that all he ever needed was to be trusted, while others had their doubts. They said there was a reason Hatton had stayed loyal to the WBU and delayed moving on. They said there was a reason he had been the favourite in every one of his 38 pro fights.
His best wins, at that stage, arrived between 2002 and 2003 when Hatton had three distance fights which each taught him something. The first, against Eamonn Magee, saw Hatton dropped by a counter right hook in round one and then attempt to navigate his way around Magee’s various booby traps for the remaining 11 rounds, striking that sweet spot between cautious and assertive.
The two other Hatton fights of meaning, pre-Tszyu, were less competitive but no less revealing. The opponents, Vince Phillips and Ben Tackie, won barely a round between them, yet that was immaterial, never the point. In their right hands they both possessed danger, enough to settle Hatton down and have him rediscover the virtues of his jab. Also, both fighters, although past their best, came with a degree of durability which served to remind Hatton that not every opponent was going to succumb to the first combination he aimed at their head and body. These men, Phillips and Tackie, were a different brand of toughness. Not only that, they had both spent time in the ring with Kostya Tszyu, the champion Hatton hoped to one day face, so offered a trial run or gateway of sorts.
As for Tszyu, though it has become fashionable to suggest he was halfway out the door by the time he fought Hatton, this could not be further from the truth. Instead, the 35-year-old Australian was, in 2005, widely considered one of the top three pound-for-pound fighters in the world and coming off one of the most impressive performances of his career. That he chose to retire after the Hatton loss – only the second loss of his pro career, by the way – is more a testament to Tszyu’s intelligence and foresight than an indictment of his form. He got out when he felt it was time to get out, not necessarily because his time was up.
Perhaps misconceptions surrounding the events of June 4, 2005 owe to the fact that the Hatton we know today is different from the Hatton we knew 20 years ago. In those days, days of mystery and uncertainty, British boxing fans had no idea whether Hatton, at 26, would be able to even compete on the same level as Tszyu, much less beat him. They had hope, of course, but the expectation was, at best, muted. Whenever it threatened to get out of hand, fans of Hatton would need only to remember what he was up against, with Tszyu’s knockout of Zab Judah played on repeat. They would also remind themselves that world-class champions like Tszyu seldom visited the UK to fight and that it was hard to even watch them on TV, with Sky Sports, the UK’s main boxing broadcaster, often showing only highlights on a Sunday or on Ringside, their midweek magazine show. This created both a hunger to see the likes of Tszyu in action and a real mystique around them. Yes, there were world champions everywhere you looked at that time, but these world champions – world champions like Tszyu – were different from the ones we called “world champions” in 2005.
Indeed, once it had been confirmed that he would be defending his IBF title against Hatton in England, my interest in the fight had as much to do with seeing Tszyu box in the flesh as seeing Hatton prove his doubters wrong. Like any teenager, I was easily blinded by the big brand and the shiny letters and was quite content to watch Tszyu dazzle and dominate in Manchester if that should be the script. In fact, turning up that night as a neutral rather than a local, I expected it, almost wanted it. It was the main reason my dad and I bought the tickets in the first place and the reason why we drove four hours to get there. We were, we were certain, about to witness a master at work.
I say all that not to expose myself as an away fan in the home end but to instead highlight the significance of what Hatton went on to produce against Tszyu. This, make no mistake, was no ordinary performance and no ordinary win. On the contrary, it represented something major. It was something Hatton never surpassed in his illustrious career and something no one else from Britain has surpassed in the two decades since. It also did something for the reputation of British boxing at the time, if only because Hatton, by winning The Big One, had bucked the rather painful trend of plucky Brits falling to their knees when stepping out of their comfort zone. For once, we had someone dump their spurious “world title” (WBU), behind which many Brits were hiding, and audaciously fight – and beat – the very best fighter in their division, forcing them to retire, no less (both in the fight and from the sport).
Twenty years on we know now that Hatton was a world-class fighter in his own right and would win additional world titles at both light-welterweight and welterweight, yet these achievements should not detract from or minimise what he did against Tszyu, nor dilute the narrative surrounding that particular fight. Because if you were there you would know how it felt. You would know that the reason why so many adult men partook in an impromptu sleepover at the M.E.N Arena was due to a mix of anticipation, nerves, and fear. You would also know that when Hatton finally walked out to “Blue Moon”, and countless men woke up, not a single one of us in the arena, in cheap seats or ringside seats, could be certain whether we were about to witness Hatton’s coronation or the complete unravelling of his supposedly manufactured career.
Whichever it was, we were now alert, keen to find out. If you weren’t jolted awake by the up-tempo rendition of “Blue Moon”, the noise of the crowd would have done the trick. If even then you still found yourself starting to drift, Hatton’s approach to the fight would have been enough to have you edging forward in your seat and rubbing your eyes. He was, after all, relentless to an almost annoying degree that night. Overstimulated, like the child who wants more, he ambushed and harassed Tszyu for 11 rounds and refused to leave him alone. He punched him, he wrestled him, he held him, and he exhausted him.
Meanwhile, with the pre-fight tension having made way for giddy disbelief, the volume inside the arena only increased. As one, we all got to our feet and watched the right hands we previously feared bounce off Hatton’s head and shoulders and we watched Hatton attack Tszyu as though he posed no greater threat than Oliveira, Stewart, Vilches or Pederson. We then watched in a state of similar disbelief when Tszyu, having had enough, opted to remain on his stool rather than come out for round 12. For a second, just a second, there was even a moment’s silence. A stunned silence, that is.
Afterwards, as 20,000 fans poured from the arena back onto the streets of Manchester, it seemed like the whole city had been woken up to what had just happened. Even those who were not at the fight knew about it, for it is that kind of city, and Hatton is that kind of fighter. The only mystery, in fact, concerned food and where to now get it with so many places closed. To the fans, it felt like morning; a new day; the start of something. Forget closing up. Forget going home. Now was the time to eat, celebrate. Now the same fans who had struggled staying awake during an undercard of mismatches struggled to fathom how they would sleep after seeing what they had just seen. The surprise element alone was enough, enough to have their minds racing and their perspective changed, but the thought of Manchester’s Ricky Hatton being the best in the world was something hard to believe. Had they even woken up?
Fuelled by the same disbelief and excitement, my dad was quick to drive us out of Manchester and for the next four hours we were on the road, relatively quiet given the time of day. Between my dad’s knees was a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken procured from a motorway service station and the car’s steering wheel was now being operated primarily by his elbows, an ill-advised technique he had gradually come to master. During the four hours we were in the car together, we spoke of nothing else, only Hatton and what he had done. If it was my dad’s turn to speak, I would do all I could not to interrupt, and vice versa. I would also, during any lull, occasionally glance in the overhead mirror just to see his eyes, hoping to see them open and not “resting”, as well as track the rate at which they were blinking. I sometimes wondered, as I did, how much scarier this same journey would have been had the fight gone the way we all expected – routine, predictable, anticlimactic. I was in the end grateful to Hatton that it hadn’t gone that way. The shock alone was enough to keep my driver awake and us both alive.
By the time we were home, it was almost eight o’clock in the morning and the sun was up. There was only one thing left to do: sleep. So, I tried. I stowed away my fight programme, climbed into bed, and attempted the frankly impossible task of nodding off in a sunlit bedroom in which three other boys were still sleeping. All I really wanted to do, despite my tiredness, was make noise, wake my brothers up, and tell them every detail of the miracle I had just seen in Manchester. But even if I had, I suspect they would not have believed it. “You had to be there,” I would have said in the face of doubt. “You were sleeping.”
In some respects, when it came to Ricky Hatton, we all were.