I loved being with Ricky Hatton. It was an honour… fame didn’t change the way he treated people, writes OLIVER HOLT

That night at Manchester, at the beginning of June 2005, he felt immortal Ricky Hatton. That night, IBF Light-Singlet fought the Great Kostya Tszyu for the world title, felt as if something could survive. It was as if something could go through. He felt as if something could be eaten.

It was a night when the sport caught you and grew up in your seat for more than an hour. Sometimes, even in the midst of the savagery of this fight, pandemonium and visceral encouragement, you could hear Tszyu’s fists descending to Hatton, Thud’s Thud and the best of Breath.

That night it was the best fight I’ve ever seen. It is one of the best sports events I’ve ever been to. Maybe it was because I partially invested. Maybe everyone who knew him loved him because I loved Hatton. Maybe I saw him as an old -fashioned sports hero.

That night was surprising. I looked again and again from my seat in Men Arena, and I watched Hatton walked in a tour at the beginning and punished a big punch directly from Tszyu. He would punch other people. Hatton shook them and proceeded again.

Theweh was awake. He punished it over and over again, but his soul would not be questioned. There was no ounce of output in Hatton. He was cruel. That night was the night he would fulfill his destiny and he knew. In the end, it was indisputable because Tszyu could not get any more and could not get out of his feces.

What night. What a privilege to be there. I loved watching Hatton and being around Hatton as much as any sports star I have ever known. He had the pride of the lions and a tiger line, an average Joe’s humbleness and the lottery of Pied Piper.

Theweh was awake. He punished it over and over again, but his soul would not be questioned

Eight years ago, I spent an evening with Ricky Hatton Stand-up nights, which he was successful as an artist. In the picture: Hatton and Oliver Holt

It was one of the honors of a life spent in sports, a life spent to spend some time with him, because there were fewer works than almost every person I met. Fame may have scared him from some angles, but he never changed the way of treating people. He was an Everyman, and it was a cliché, then he was a cliché, but he was also a folk champion.

Muhammad Ali or Sugar Ray may not have the natural ability of Leonard, but he was still one of the biggest champions of the fighting game. Lennox was part of the golden age of British boxing, which contained Lennox Lewis and Amir Khan, and Hatton was more popular than both.

When he fought in Las Vegas, he followed a large press corps and continued his adventure with him. So are more than 30,000 fans. He hasn’t been a popular British fighter as before or since then. He turned the weighing into audience events. Yeah, he was so charismatic.

Most of these fans were Manchester City supporters. Hatton loved the city and had bad times with them. The music played while walking in the ring was Blue Moon. The fans of the city identified with him and identified with them. On Sunday, before Manchester Derby, he was right and great to arrange a tribute to him.

Juan Urango in Vegas, Jose Luis Castillo and Floyd Mayweather, and after the Castilllo fighting, he became a swollen -eyed and suite’s bedroom to talk to the members of the press to see him.

“ I’m sorry for my appearance, ‘he said. ‘I spent a night with my friends Mr. Guinness and Mr. Black.’ Hatton liked to drink. He loved ‘shit shirt competitions’ in the local pub on Manchester’s skirts, with enthusiasm, competitions he would usually participate in a hawaii number.

Sometimes people talk about that they don’t forget their roots even when they move away from sports stars. This kind of observation will be irrelevant to Hatton. Hatton was his roots. He never got away. He never wanted. In some angles, I didn’t meet anyone comfortably on his own skin. In other ways, he struggled with what life threw him.

After retirement and the spotlight moved away, some of these struggles became clearer. More than Spot light, the discipline of fighting, fighting and fear of competition, and the euphoria and the crowd of the crowd and yes, he missed the adult.

Most of these fans were Manchester City supporters. Hatton loved the city and had a bad time with them

His personal life was not complicated and had problems in his relationship with his father Ray. That was what he found the most difficult to talk about. He carried the feeling of a mourning man for something lost.

He spoke in a brave and inspiring way about his struggle against mental health, and when the news about his death on Sunday morning was broken, the BBC’s boxing expert Steve Bunce suggested that his clarity in his speech about demons will continue as a legacy as much as he had in the ring.

Hatton fought hard with them. He made fun of him about his weight. Sometimes he wore a fat suit. He made fun of drinking habits and addictions. He took everything.

Eight years ago, I spent an evening with Ricky Hatton Stand-up nights, which he was successful as an artist. The royal Royal in Runcorn was in the British Legion in front of about 300 people. ‘Ricky Hatton, rehabilitation new output’ as I introduced.

One of the opening lines was his explanation of why he didn’t appear, I am a celebrity. “ It would be good if I do not enter the forest, ”he says.` `In the first place, it was a bit of a shrub that put me in trouble. ”

Hatton was growing that night. Now again, again, in the working men’s club, shadow boxing and punching, and one of the previous fights, Ben Tackie Granit, dancing against a opponent with a granite jawed opponent.

There was something touching about the night. Hatton was fascinated, but the old fighters feel sharper than most athletes, because perhaps there is nothing that can increase the fatal fear of visceral adrenaline.

In a hall bar of Robert de Niro’s Jake Lamotta, Raging Bull, which was entertained by a small crowd, carried the light echoes of the stage. Hatton was better than Lamotta, and the scene in Raging Bull in Runcorn had no disaped sorrow atmosphere, but there was still a certain sorrow about it.

Hatton made fun of him about his weight. Sometimes he wore a fat suit. He made fun of drinking habits and addictions. It took everything

Hatton wasn’t hiding. Hatton never hidden. He was never hiding about how much his defeat to Mayweather was harmful to him, or about the shame he felt in the second round of decaying of Manny Pacquiao.

That night I sat down with him in Legion for a while. Hatton looked around for a green room. On the wall, there were some marks where a small cabinet had fallen from their fastening.

In the distant corner, a sink next to a worn brown leather sofa and next to a table on the Hill of Formica. It was far from Las Vegas’s bright lights. Hatton looked at his friend and long -time manager Paul spoke. “ MGM Grand, ” he said smiling.

When Zeitgeist moves and remembered how old warrior things are, he spoke about what would happen.

That night, I miss the roar of the crowd in Runcorn, ‘he said. “ I can’t go to big fights, it makes me sad. You want those days to drive forever when you’re on the ring.

“ I miss every day, but I find it difficult to go to big fights. The crowd is roaring. I don’t like it. It makes me sad. He’s suppressing me. I don’t want to look like a broken record, but you want those days to drive forever when you’re on the ring. Sometimes it’s really hard for me to keep things fixed.

When a big fight comes, then it’s hard for me. So you won’t see me in many big fights. In Manchester Arena, crippled me when crowded. In some respects, the worst emotion and crowded arena in the world while he was in that tunnel before fighting. But when you go, you look back and you think it’s the best feeling.

“ As if you were standing on the edge of the world and looking at the edge. When I was at the summit of the invoice, you had a ring entrance in the tunnel and the Blue Moon would start and go out.

“ You will be on your own in this small tunnel that follows your opponent’s walking ring. I would be there and every time “What am I doing for this?” A little fear that I miss now. ‘

First of all, Hatton wanted to make people laugh. He wanted to be honest but he didn’t want anyone to be upset about him

Hatton was always a hero for me and millions more for the warrior and for the man he was.

Hatton had to participate in a fight on Saturday evening, but failed. That was the alarm. Hatton attempted suicide at Runcorn that night. He didn’t dirt. “ I felt like a fraud, ” he said. “ I felt that I disappointed everyone. I was very weak. I couldn’t kill myself, so I thought I’d kill myself. ‘

But first of all he wanted to make people laugh. He wanted to be honest, but he didn’t want anyone to be upset about him. He tried to use laughter as treatment. ‘But I can guarantee that it will take longer than the Pacquiao fight.’

So perhaps it is best to remember a joke he told about an early moment in his career that night. ‘One of my first fights was against this man,’ he said, and when we tart, he was covered with tattoos from head to toe. I didn’t know I was going to fight him. ‘

This was Ricky Hatton. Always stand out, always swing, never step back, never artificial, never for a moment, always a hero to me and the warrior where he is and where he is and for the man he is.