Spot on about his dad. I find it astonishing that his dad was batting it all away like it was something trivial and coming up with some barely believable excuse for it. The fact that Billy won the case and got a 7 figure sum out of it shows that it was anything but trivial. His dad ripped both Billy and Ricky off and destroyed their relationship into the bargain. Who needs enemies when you've got cunts like that in your life? Seriously, his dad is lucky that Ricky is even on speaking terms with him these days. I really wanted the documentary to end with Ricky meeting up with Billy but maybe that will happen in the future.
Ricky was clearly in a dark place a lot of the time. I think the drinking was pretty much par for the course as going on the lash with his mates has always been a big thing for him. But when you add in the drugs as well it becomes a different problem altogether. The trouble is, when you become rich and famous those things suddenly become more accessible. I dread to think how I would've got on if I suddenly had too much time and money on my hands.
As for the boxing, I was at the Tszyu fight and it was an incredible night. I couldn't see Hatton pulling it off beforehand but he put in a superhuman performance against a fantastic fighter. Remember that this is the boxer who had Zab Judah doing the chicken dance, yet Hatton forced him to quit on his stool.
After that, I don't think he ever quite hit those heights again. His first fight after Tszyu was against Carlos Maussa who had somehow won a world title against Vivian Harris a few months previous and was so far away from Tszyu's level it was laughable, but Ricky made much harder work of that one than he should've done before finally knocking him out in the 9th. There then followed a couple of unconvincing wins against Collazo and Urango (although he stepped up a weight for that first one) before he turned in a vintage Hatton performance when knocking Castillo out with that textbook body punch of his. To be fair to him, the Mayweather defeat was no disgrace and he did get some change early on. On another day with a different ref it might just have ended differently but Mayweather is sheer quality and seemed to have a knack of solving puzzles presented to him as fights went on. The less said about the Pacquiao bout the better but I'm sure a peak Hatton would've made a much better fight of it.
Overall he had a stellar career IMO and unlike the bullshit we see from many boxers when avoiding opponents, Hatton never shied away from fighting the big names. It was clear that Frank Warren didn't want him fighting Tszyu when he did, despite him being nearly 40 fights into his career. It was only because Ricky put his foot down that the fight happened.
