Rock band Oasis, who Hatton adored and would later befriend, were building on Manchester’s reputation as a capital of the music world.<\/p>\n
Manchester United were dominating English football.<\/p>\n
Hatton was playing his part in the ring and also giving his Manchester City-supporting backers something to cheer while their team struggled in the Red Devils’ shadow.<\/p>\n
In the city centre, a new venue opened and staged a Torvill and Dean performance on its opening night.<\/p>\n
“It was fortunate that they built the Manchester Arena when they did,” said Speak of the indoor venue that welcomed its first customers in 1995.<\/p>\n
This is where Hatton had 15 of his professional fights. “It would become his fortress,” Speak said.<\/p>\n
By the time Hatton fought Kostya Tszyu in 2005, he was selling out the arena.<\/p>\n
Hatton stopped the man who was regarded as the world’s best light-welterweight to win the IBF title.<\/p>\n
Danny Jackson, a close friend to Hatton and Manchester City’s matchday announcer, delivered an emotional speech in memory of his pal at the recent City-United derby.<\/p>\n
He gives Hatton credit for putting his beloved football club – now giants of the world game – in the spotlight.<\/p>\n
“You look at Rick’s time as a boxer, there wasn’t a lot to like about City then,” Jackson said.<\/p>\n
“Rick was a bit of a shining light in that period. He got City’s brand out there to millions of people.”<\/p>\n
Retired world champion Anthony Crolla described the Tszyu fight as “one of the greatest nights Manchester has ever had in any sport”.<\/p>\n
The next day, Hatton set up camp at the New Inn in Hyde for what had become a regular celebration \u2013 nicknamed the not-so-nice shirt nights.<\/p>\n
“He didn’t want to swan off to celebrity hotspots; he wanted to be around his mates and having a laugh,” said Jackson.<\/p>\n
Paul Smith, the Liverpool world title challenger who trained alongside Hatton, remembers one fancy dress party when Hatton dressed as ‘Ginger Spice’ Geri Halliwell.<\/p>\n
Those kind of images would get out and help to keep Hatton in the hearts of those from Manchester, because they could see he was one of them.<\/p>\n
That never changed. This summer, Hatton attended a friend’s stag do in Portugal.<\/p>\n
They set him up by giving him dissolvable swimming shorts to wear in the pool.<\/p>\n
“There were a group of lads there from Leeds by the pool idolising him and they were saying ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this to a superstar’,” said Jackson.<\/p>\n
“He took the stick, he gave the stick, just a normal guy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rock band Oasis, who Hatton adored and would later befriend, were building on Manchester’s reputation as a capital…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-188423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}