The Pagliacci of the prize-ring is to be buried today.
There will be floods of tears from the great and the good in Manchester Cathedral, among the conjoined blue and red tumult of thousands on the streets, at the Etihad Stadium as the procession reaches its anointed destination.
There will be gales of laughter at the long night’s wake for this city’s favourite son.
All properly so in commemoration of the fighting man whose conflicted life mirrored that of grand opera’s tormented clown.
Pagliacci cried in his dressing room before tumbling into the circus ring to make his audience laugh, his painted face streaked by his weeping.
Ricky Hatton felt a duty to entertain the public even though his private emotions were awash with distress and depression.
Ricky Hatton and Jeff Powell watch Man City together in 2012. At half-time he suddenly confided the scale of his financial loss
Boxing legend and Manchester’s favourite son Hatton died at the age of just 46 in September
Touching tributes and heartfelt messages were left by mourners outside his home last month
Each felt bitterly betrayed by his family. The 19th century Harlequin driven madly murderous by his wife taking a lover. The Hitman of our epoch wracked by suspicion that his father Ray had been party to the disappearance of a considerable tranche of his hard-won earnings.
Pagliacci’s despair culminated in his killing the woman he loved and the rival who cuckolded him.
Hatton’s death is a tragedy in four acts. The wrenching apart from his family was the most traumatic stanza. When accusations flew in a car park so did a punch from Hatton Sr. Had Ricky hit him back he might have killed him. Instead, his self restraint spoke to the son being the bigger man.
The psychological wounds could not be healed like the cut eyes, busted noses and cracked ribs which were the trademarks of his relentless courage within the ropes. Not even by a brief reconciliation before a finite separation from his parents. That foundation stone of the universal love he craved was gone for good.
This became painfully clear one evening at his home 13 years ago when we sat together watching his beloved Manchester City on television. It was during his preparations for the ill-conceived comeback from retirement against the bigger Vyacheslav Senchenko, which would be the last of his 49 fights. During half-time he suddenly confided the scale of his financial loss. Suffice it say here that there were six noughts on the end of the substantial number.
Defeat in two of the three biggest fights of his life played their twin roles in Hatton’s drama. Twice the Pied Piper of Hyde bounced into Las Vegas at the head of an astounding 30,000 of his faithful followers. Both times he would be confronted by a legend. Never one to duck a challenge no matter how daunting, he believed in that huge heart that he could ‘better the both of ‘em.’
First the ultimately unbeatable Floyd Mayweather Jr knocked him out, the concussion deepened by his head hitting a corner post as he fell. Then he would suffer a similar but more alarming fate at the lethal fists of Manny Pacquaio, the only eight-division world champion in the annals of the hardest game. In only the second round the PacMan dropped him flat on his back. Eyes glazed. Utterly senseless.
For a few scary moments, as his arms folded over his chest as if he were laid in a coffin, some of us feared the Hitman was dead.
The knockout he suffered against the unbeatable Floyd Mayweather Jr had a lasting effect
He then suffered a similar but more alarming fate at the lethal fists of Manny Pacquaio in 2009
His death is a tragedy in four acts and the wrenching apart from his family was the most traumatic stanza: Hatton pictured with ex-partner Claire Sweeney in Manchester in April 2024
Once revived he put on that quizzical grin to which we were accustomed, saying of himself and his blue and white army: ‘At least we drank the town dry.’
‘That they did,’ confirmed Scott Ghertner, a director of the MGM group of casino resorts on the The Strip. ‘We kept trucking in more and more gallons of beer but in the end even Vegas ran out.’
We laughed. But soon the impact of that second crushing showed on the face peeking out from behind the mask of the clown.
‘I’m humiliated,’ he said next morning. We told him that no two-time world champion should feel that way. That his was a career full of pride, not for recrimination. He demurred: ‘It’s not the losing these two fights. It’s that I’ve let down the people who love me and who I love. All these lads who’ve come over with me. All those back home who stayed up all night to watch me. Failed ‘em.’
He was fretting he might have lost them for good. The send-off at McCarran airport and the reception awaiting him in Manchester told a different story, So did the millions who continued adoring him down the ensuing years and never mind that he drowned his sorrows in drink and confessed lapses into drugs and dark contemplation of suicide.
The love affair never ended for the patriot who out-stripped even Henry Cooper and Frank Bruno in the public devotion to his fellow English idols of the ring.
Many great champions – Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, the two Sugar Rays (Robinson and Leonard) and our Lennox Lewis among them – coped with defeat and came back the stronger.
Deep inside Ricky – beneath the sparking bonhomie which continued to make him irresistible, irrepressible company and hidden behind the need to keep us all chuckling – something was broken. He kept us all amused with his vibrant personality, even while he was contemplating ending it all. He made us happy, But as he would occasionally admit, not often himself. In what became increasingly a wilderness of loneliness. Even in a crowd.
Those at the service and the tumult of thousands on the city streets will mourn as the icon who entered the ring to the strains of the Manchester City anthem Blue Moon takes his final bow
Manchester City – of whom Hatton was a huge fan – honoured the boxing legend with a tribute
His son Campbell cut a tearful expression as the banner was unveiled at the Etihad last month
The ironies did not end there. They dogged him to the concluding act of his opera. Can it be mere coincidence that the final curtain fell in the early darkness of a Sunday morning in Manchester, in virtual unison with the Saturday night hour in Vegas at which another warrior champion endured what may be the terminating loss of his career? The latter on the very neon Strip where Ricky was plunged into melancholy.
Saul Canelo Alvarez is immeasurably wealthier than Richard John Hatton and owns enough super-cars to fill a Formula 1 grid to prove it. But he too, first and foremost, is a man of his people. A chest-bared standard bearer for his country.
Both took their defeats with dignity but the anguish was palpable. Canelo was the uncrowned king of Mexico until the lighter but multi-talented Terence Crawford dethroned him. Unceremoniously. Come the scorecards his reddened face was etched deep with anxiety that his nation, in all its fabled machismo, might desert him. Hopefully not.
Neither he nor Hatton deserve to be judged by the old pugilist maxim which insists you are only as good as your last fight. The outpouring of public affection suggests that Hatton will be fond-remembered in the UK for a very long time. Not least the media.
It is generally incumbent upon we who chronicle sport to be impartial in our judgements. Objectivity flew to the rafters on the Manchester night of Ricky’s epic triumph over Kostya Tszyu. As the great Australian’s corner raised the white towel of surrender on behalf of their beleaguered champion, before the 12th and last round could commence, the ringside press row stood as one man to punch the air in delight.
Circumstances beyond the control of myself and the Mail prevented me from writing as it happened about either Canelo’s defeat or Ricky’s death. The first restriction was professionally frustrating in the extreme. The second a profound, personal sense of loss which his funeral gives me this opportunity to salve.
The icon who entered the ring to the strains of the Manchester City anthem Blue Moon takes his final bow – at only 46 for God’s sake – with millions of his countrymen in blue mourning.
Canelo Alvarez’s anguishing defeat against Terence Crawford occurred virtually in unison with Hatton’s death – and happened on the same Las Vegas strip where he plunged into melancholy
Paul Speak, Hatton’s agent, reads the heartfelt messages written by grievers to the boxer
Hatton felt a duty to entertain – even though his private emotions were awash with depression
The last line of Ruggero Leoncavallo’s everlasting opera finds Pagliacci standing over the bodies of his wife and her lover as he sings La comemedia e finital.
The comedy is ended. So it is for Ricky Hatton. Albeit in his case with an epilogue still to come.
As the curtain comes down today, it veils this one last question: Was the Hitman’s last victim himself?
We may never know the true answer. Not unless and until we join him one day in the celestial saloon.
Keep a bar-stool for me, Ricky. The one next to you.
