An article you may find insightful ahead of tonight:
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/nov/23/ricky-hatton-vyacheslav-senchenko" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/no ... -senchenko</a>
Ricky Hatton: winning a world title would give me ending I can accept
The boxer says that win, lose or draw against Vyacheslav Senchenko on Saturday night he
will be able to look himself in the mirror and know he has turned his life around
Donald McRae
The Guardian, Friday 23 November 2012 16.00 GMT
Ricky Hatton says he plans to wrap all his anger, sadness and frustration and throw it at Vyacheslav Senchenko. Photographs: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
Two wounded men will walk to the ring at a fevered Manchester Arena on Saturday night knowing that pain and hope bind them together. Ricky Hatton and Bob Shannon, a returning fighter and an old trainer, seem made for each other. Their families have been cleaved apart and, now, ahead of a wild and fearful night, they need one another like never before.
Over the past eight weeks, after his usual early morning workout in preparation for his comeback fight against a tough Ukrainian called Vyacheslav Senchenko, Hatton has trained his boxers in Hyde while Shannon has worked as a painter and decorator in Wilmslow. It has been different at night. Immersed in their new partnership, they have tested each other with tortuous intensity in Shannon's gym at the back of an abandoned building in Openshaw. At times, while moving from the fighter to his trainer and back again, Manchester has not felt big enough to contain their tumultuous stories of darkness and loss.
Beyond the suicidal thoughts, which ruined his three and a half years outside the ring, Hatton appears to have lost the parents who were once his staunchest supporters. Their only recent contact unfolded on a distressing morning in September when his father, Ray, was arrested after assaulting Ricky outside his gym. Their argument occurred the day before Hatton announced his return to the ring. "It was the first time in a long time I've seen my dad," Hatton says.
His voice tails away – matching the silence that follows later when, while painting a white wall inside a suburban home, Shannon tells me how his only son died nine years ago. "We're in this together, me and Ricky," Shannon says. "We both know what grief means – and what it means to hope you can get better through boxing."
This is more than two parallel stories about a 34-year-old fighter missing his father and a veteran trainer mourning the death of his 21-year-old son. Hatton mines the depths of his despair while trying to explain why his fight on Saturday, which could be a brutal struggle against Senchenko, may offer him a way out.
Hatton in training for his fight against Senchenko. Photograph: Christopher Thomond
It's telling that on a quiet Friday morning in Hyde, after training Sergey Rabchenko, an unbeaten light-middleweight from Belarus, Hatton cannot stop himself from confronting the old wounds. Having worked Rabchenko hard, in between familiar gym banter stretching from Manchester City to masturbation, Hatton unleashes a torrent of words about his depression as soon as we reach the black leather sofas downstairs.
We're on our own now and a routine first question about him making the welterweight limit of 67kg (10st 7lb) opens the door into a bleak place. "I could've made the weight four weeks ago so it feels good to be preparing for an opponent rather than the scales," Hatton says before plunging straight down into his decline. "But it was criminal what I used to do to my body – drinking so much between fights and ballooning up in weight. We all laughed at Ricky Fatton but it was a miracle I got away with it so long. But I didn't really get away with anything, did I? Life kicked my arse with a vengeance.
"It's obvious I was killing myself. My blood pressure was through the roof and I was 15st 6lb. My doctor said I was on the verge of a heart attack. What he didn't know was how close, or how often, I'd already come to killing myself. I've had so many problems with depression, drugs, drink, the newspapers, fall-outs. Every fuck-up you could make in life I did it.
"It got to a point where I didn't care if I lived or I died. I'd been this working class hero, this down-to-earth Manchester lad, who people liked so much that 25,000 of them flew to Vegas to watch me fight, singing: 'There's only one Ricky Hatton …' Look what they ended up with? Another fucking Ricky Hatton altogether – a drunk crying in the corner of a pub. They used to say of me: 'What a fighter! What a cracking lad!' and then they saw this weeping wreck."
I cannot remember how many times I have interviewed Hatton over the years but I have learnt it is often better just to listen to him. "I'd go into the pub and start crying even before I'd had my first drink," he murmurs. "I was literally thinking: 'I'm going to drink myself to death here.' Jennifer [Dooley, his girlfriend and the mother of his daughter Millie] would find me there. Or she would get home and see me with a knife at my wrist. She would take the knife away and calm me down. That was happening on a daily basis at one time – Jennifer taking knives off me or me having panic attacks. I hated the person I'd become."
The emptiness a fighter feels when his greatest and most gruelling nights in the ring dribble away to nothing is not new. Hatton joins a long line of boxing men who discovered desolation in retirement. He may be different in that he was loved by so many ordinary people – but the only contrast that now matters is whether he can avoid the even sadder fate that usually envelopes a faded boxer on the comeback trail. I mention the frightening scream Jennifer made when she saw him knocked unconscious by Manny Pacquiao in his last fight, in May 2009.
"I don't want Jennifer going through that again," Hatton says. "But I want to beat Senchenko and win a world title. That's what I need to do to give myself an ending I can accept. But Senchenko is real good. Even the doubters are saying I've got a big test. But he's what I need because whatever happens – win, lose or draw – I will be able to look myself in the mirror on Sunday morning and know I've turned my life around. Jennifer might be worried but she also sees the difference. Instead of finding me with a knife in my hand she sees me taking Millie to the park. She likes that much happier person."
Hatton's debt to Jennifer is plain even as he opens up the raw hurt with his parents, Ray and Carol. His eyes cloud briefly as he says: "Jennifer is the only one who has dragged me through the last three years. I'd like to think my mum and dad would have been there to help but they haven't."
More hard time in the gym for Hatton. Photograph: Christopher Thomond
Will they be at the fight? "No," Hatton says. His gaunt and marked-up face tightens when asked if there is any chance of reconciliation in a family feud over a business deal. "I don't think so. I really don't. It's a shame but I've separated myself from my family and I'm trying to move on. All my problems must have been upsetting for my mum and dad but you think they would be proud of me putting my life back together. But the day before my press conference he chose to come have a go at me. It's very sad."
What about his brother, Matthew, who continues his own brave if limited boxing career? "Matthew's all right. He's in the gym every day. We don't talk about it but I know it's hard for him. He's piggy in the middle but Matthew's great with me. I've got Jennifer and I've now got Bob Shannon. Bob's a proper person. He's a family man and 100% decent. He's got my welfare at heart."
Shannon used to train Matthew Hatton until he was fired earlier this year. He has grown used to fighters breaking his heart and so he shrugs when, in leafy Wilmslow, he dips his brush into a pot of white paint. "Matthew phoned me out of the blue," he recalls, "and said: 'I've had two losses with you now.' I said: 'Matthew, you lost to Saúl Alvarez and to Kell Brook. Even with Freddie Roach in your corner you'd have lost to those two. There's no shame in that.' He said: 'I don't think so. I'm leaving you.' And he put the phone down. That hurt. I thought there was no chance Ricky would turn to me if he ever came back."
In the study belonging to Mrs Hills, to whom Shannon was recommended by her friend Mrs Williams, the trainer and decorator works steadily. He only puts down his brush when his amiable chat turns to his new fighter and his dead son. "We always go to the cemetery, me and Jean," Shannon says of the weekly visits he and his wife make to Robert's grave. "It might sound strange but I talk to Robert …"
Shannon hesitates before resuming, his voice becoming more gravelly with every sentence. "I was talking to Robert about all the speculation around Ricky's comeback and of my own problems keeping the gym open. I'd given my phone to Jean and as I was talking to Robert it rang. Jean said: 'Bob, I can't believe this. It's Ricky Hatton.' I finally answered it and Ricky asked if I would come see him at his home. Now I'd never been to Ricky's home before. But my two brothers had decorated his house. Small world."
Shannon shakes his head at the intimate vagaries of boxing and decorating in Manchester. But the words tumble from him as he describes how Hatton convinced him that he was returning in an attempt to redeem himself rather than just because he needed the money or missed the attention. "He looked like a man who deserved a second chance," Shannon says. "And everything he wanted to do for himself and his family reminded me of my own hopes. My dad was a boxing trainer in Manchester until he lost his life tragically at the age of 44. His death devastated me but it was nothing compared to how I felt when we lost Robert."
Hatton with his new trainer, Bob Shannon. Photograph: Christopher Thomond
Shannon rubs his chest as if he might ease the ache when recalling the night his son was killed in a car accident in 2003. "Robbie was only 21," Shannon says. "He was a lovely lad. Like me and my dad he was a cornerman and a painter and decorator. Robbie always told me: 'Dad, your chance will come.'"
On Saturday night Shannon will get his chance in front of 20,000 raucous Hatton supporters. "It's a big moment for me – but I'll also be carrying thoughts of Robert. I can't ever forget how I had to tell my wife he had been killed. She collapsed. I thought she had died. The shock of it nearly killed me too. I couldn't believe it. I still can't. I think about him every day, especially when I'm decorating, and then I hear Robbie's voice: 'Don't think about it, Dad.' And so I think about boxing and Ricky instead."
Shannon leans against an unpainted wall. "Boxing saved me after I lost Robert," he says, his kind old face crinkling. "I couldn't get out of bed after he died. I was broken. And then, seven weeks later, my fighters came to see me. I looked out of my bedroom window and they were all gathered outside my house. I opened the door and they said: 'Bob, we need you back.'"
Tears block his words as Shannon struggles to stop crying. But that reminder of being needed soon returns him to his latest fighter. Hatton, clearly, will need Shannon to both calm and bolster him tonight. Shannon nods: "It's going to be very emotional for Ricky and of course, it's not been a good time with his dad. It's affected him. Sometimes he comes into the gym and his head is down. He's missing his mother and father. But I say: 'Come on Rick, we've got work to do.'
"Most fighters are insecure. So I put my hands on him every night and I tell him how good he is – just as I also tell him what he needs to do to get better. I know Ricky loves to be liked. He really does. And that's why it's so important that he ends this comeback on a winning note. I hope he can go out there and beat Senchenko and then win a world title against Paulie Malignaggi and then stop – having put all his demons to rest.
Hatton's one-man show at the pre-fight face-off Link to this video
"But Senchenko is lively. Ricky wanted him from the word go but I was concerned. I said: 'Ricky, you've already sold the venue out – we can start with an easier fight.' He said: 'No, I want to prove myself to everyone.' But that first round is going to be critical because if I was Senchenko I would come out fast and hit Ricky hard. Bam! Senchenko will want to shake him up and get inside his head where Ricky has his dark thoughts. That's why I'm working Ricky so hard. He has to be ready to go through hell."
Two hours later, in the dingy Openshaw gym Shannon has kept going for 20 years, a version of hell unfolds. It's a salutary experience, even after watching him train so many times before, to see a bruised and pale Hatton push his abused body to new extremes. On an old squash court, blackened with grime, Shannon wears a body-bag as Hatton tears into him. The fighter's savage punches are accompanied by eerie screams and cries.
A wheezing Shannon drags himself off the canvas, winking at me standing on the apron of the shuddering ring, as if in reassurance that his wince has been slightly embellished to boost his fighter. But there is no refuge for Hatton when Shannon takes his revenge on the adjoining court – forcing him through three vicious drills of sit-ups and push-ups, jumps and lifts. This is redemption at its most battered and cruel.
Afterwards, and with old photographs of Shannon's dead son, Robert, looking down on them, the two men part. Hatton sits alone on a hard bench and peels off his soaked shirt and damp socks. Shannon, meanwhile, rubs his white hair, which resembles a kind of grandad mohawk, with a towel. They are lost in their own thoughts about the approaching tumult of Saturday night.
"I've been an emotional wreck the last three years," Hatton says. "Some of it has been my fault, some of it hasn't. I'm wrapping all the anger and sadness and frustration in a big ball I'm going to throw at Senchenko. Everyone knows my story and lots of people have been disappointed in my deterioration as a man. But they can see I'm trying to get better. So it'll feel like the roof is going to blow off when I walk out there. I'll be thinking of Jennifer and how I hit rock bottom. It'll take a massive effort not to give into the waterworks but we'll save the bucket and mop for afterwards. I just hope they're happy tears."
Hatton smiles as he catches Shannon's eye. "You'll be all right Ricky," the old trainer says. "We'll both be all right, won't we?"
