Ricky Hatton: The heart and soul behind a boxing wonderland - P7
- Shidonna Raven
- 3 days ago
- 1 min read
By Tris Dixon
This Article has been curated by UDBN
September 25, 2025
Source: Boxing Scene
“To stop him [Tszyu], for him to be on his stool, even if I hit him with one of my bodyshots and knocked him out, it could never be as good as a formidable fighter like Kostya Tszyu sitting on his stool and going ‘No, no more, I’ve had enough.’”
That’s what happened.
Tszyu did not fight anymore that night. Tszyu never fought again.
**
In the Autumn of 2007, I visited Ricky and Billy at the Betta Bodies Gym – on the third floor of an old factory – where Billy’s Phoenix camp was based in Denton.
They were about seven weeks out from fighting Floyd Mayweather Jnr in Las Vegas and the pair had adopted a siege mentality.
As with the Tszyu fight, they knew people wanted Ricky to win, the people just didn’t believe he would win.
Conversely, there was nothing but belief in Ricky and Billy’s minds. Mayweather was just another Tszyu-like hill to scale; this time up at welterweight. It was a further chapter of the story they were writing together.
I watched Ricky working with Billy and then sat in the back office with Billy’s reptiles, snakes and iguanas and whatever else he kept there, to talk to them both.
Ricky did the famous bar-bag routine, alternating intervals between punching a bag and vaulting over a bar that was higher than Ricky’s waist.
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