Ricky Hatton, who has died aged 46, was one of Britain’s most celebrated boxers of the modern era, a former two-weight world champion whose ferocious, crowd-pleasing style and raucous travelling fanbase made him a phenomenon well beyond the confines of the sport.
Nicknamed “The Hitman”, Hatton embodied the gritty, blue-collar determination of his native Greater Manchester. He won the IBF and WBA light-welterweight titles and later captured the WBA welterweight crown, compiling a professional record of 45 wins from 48 fights.
Yet behind the thunderous body shots and defiant grin lay a more fragile soul, and after his retirement he spoke candidly about his struggles with depression, alcohol and the disorienting void left by the end of a glittering career.
Hatton was found dead at his home in Hyde, Tameside, on Sunday morning. Greater Manchester Police confirmed that officers were called to a property on Bowlacre Road at 6.45am, where they discovered the body of a 46-year-old man. While formal identification has yet to be made public, it is understand to be Hatton. Police said there were no suspicious circumstances.
Only days earlier, Hatton had been posting upbeat videos from the gym, training for an exhibition bout in Dubai scheduled for December. The fight was intended to mark yet another comeback for a man whose relationship with the sport was as enduring as it was fraught.
Rise of a local hero
Born in Stockport on 6th October 1978, Richard John Hatton grew up in the working-class suburbs of Manchester, the son of Ray and Carol Hatton. He was introduced to boxing as a boy at the local club in Hyde and showed early promise, winning schoolboy titles before turning professional in 1997 under the management of Frank Warren.
What set Hatton apart, even in his raw early years, was an unrelenting aggression and an almost masochistic willingness to absorb punishment to land his own blows. His signature weapon was a short left hook to the body, often thrown from close range and with murderous intent. Fans flocked to see him, not least because he seemed to embody their own sense of Northern defiance — short, stocky, unflashy, all heart.
By 2005 he was Britain’s brightest star. In June of that year he dethroned the highly regarded Kostya Tszyu to win the IBF light-welterweight title in front of a raucous Manchester crowd, forcing the Russian-Australian to retire on his stool after 11 punishing rounds. That victory propelled Hatton into the sport’s elite and cemented his status as a working-class icon.
Conquest and heartbreak
Hatton’s popularity only grew as he moved up in weight to claim the WBA welterweight crown from Luis Collazo in Boston in 2006. Yet he was at his most comfortable back at 140lb, where in December 2007 he faced the unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr in Las Vegas in what became one of the most lucrative bouts in British boxing history. Tens of thousands of fans travelled from Britain, painting the Strip sky blue and belting out “There’s only one Ricky Hatton”.
The fight ended in heartbreak: Hatton was outclassed and stopped in the 10th round, his first professional defeat. Still, his bravery in the face of Mayweather’s brilliance only deepened public affection. Two years later he was stopped in two rounds by Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas — a brutal knockout that effectively marked the end of his time at the summit.
Hatton announced his retirement in 2012 after an abortive comeback against Vyacheslav Senchenko in Manchester, where he was knocked out in the ninth round. By then, the emotional toll of boxing had begun to show. He later admitted to suicidal thoughts, bouts of heavy drinking and long periods of depression. “I felt like I had lost my identity,” he said. “I’d gone from 20,000 fans chanting my name to sitting in the pub on my own wondering who I was.”
A complicated afterlife
In retirement Hatton trained fighters and worked as a television pundit. He relished mentoring younger boxers but was candid about the dark undercurrents that had shaped his own career. His openness about mental health won him admiration beyond sport and helped break down taboos in boxing’s traditionally stoic culture.
In recent years he had slimmed down from his post-retirement weight gain and looked revitalised, returning for an exhibition bout against fellow former world champion Marco Antonio Barrera in 2022. His planned fight in Dubai this December was meant to be another celebratory lap.
Tributes
News of Hatton’s death prompted an outpouring of tributes from across the boxing world. The Ring magazine said it was “deeply saddened” by the loss of “a true warrior who gave everything of himself to the sport”. IFLTV described him as “a legend of a man inside and outside the ring, he was truly one of a kind.”
Former rival Floyd Mayweather Jr posted a photograph of the pair smiling together, calling Hatton “a great champion and an even greater gentleman”. Tyson Fury, the current WBC heavyweight champion and a fellow Mancunian, said: “Ricky lit the path for all of us who came after him. He was our hero.”
Hatton is survived by his two children.
For many, Ricky Hatton will always remain the lad from Manchester who rose from the local gyms to conquer the boxing world, carried on the shoulders of a singing, beer-soaked army of fans. He brought joy to millions, pain to himself, and left behind memories of nights when Britain ruled the fight game — and when, for 12 furious rounds, nothing seemed impossible.
