A working-class fighter who grew up above a pub on a council estate and worked for a time in the family carpet business, Hatton’s modest background and humble, good-natured personality endeared him to a hardcore set of fans from the very start of his career.<\/p>\n
“When Ricky came along, we immediately felt like we had a connection with him, because he was so down to earth, so open and honest”, says Jamie Hind, a 47-year-old fan who lived in Cheshire and Manchester during Hatton’s career.<\/p>\n
“You just felt like he you knew him and couldn’t help but be carried on the wave of enthusiasm for him.<\/p>\n
“Me and my pals were fortunate enough to see him fight a fair few times. We always made sure to make a proper night of it whenever he was fighting, and he gave us some great memories.”<\/p>\n
Hatton built up a stellar record in the light-welterweight ranks, winning 41 consecutive fights in a career that began in 1997 in Widnes, and the bright lights of America were irresistible.<\/p>\n
Hatton fought and beat Colombia’s Juan Urango and Mexican Jose Luis Castillo in Paradise, the neighbourhood that contains many of the famous Vegas tourist hotspots.<\/p>\n
His reputation as a star attraction in Nevada was growing, as was his fanbase.<\/p>\n
Armed with a 43-0 record, Hatton challenged global superstar Floyd Mayweather for his welterweight belts in 2007, this time at the MGM Grand.<\/p>\n
This was in an era before Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury headlined stadiums.<\/p>\n
It was Hatton’s time, and it was witnessed by Hatton’s people. Many planeloads of them.<\/p>\n
A pre-fight weigh-in was attended by over 5,000 people, many of them travelling Hatton fans who serenaded him with chants of “Walking in a Hatton wonderland” while relentlessly booing pound-for-pound all-time great Mayweather.<\/p>\n
Hatton was a Manchester City supporter, but he united Mancunians.<\/p>\n
“I’ve never seen anything like that weigh-in,” says Sean McManamon, a fan from Urmston who attended the Mayweather fight with his father and a friend.<\/p>\n
“The Americans were stunned by the amount of people and the noise. It was deafening.<\/p>\n
“We paid about \u00a3700 for tickets to the fight – they were right at the back, but we just had to be there.<\/p>\n
“Ricky was a proper Mancunian. We’re big United fans, but you put your football allegiance aside for Ricky Hatton.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A working-class fighter who grew up above a pub on a council estate and worked for a time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-146625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}