Two-weight world champion and the people's fighter from Hyde
Boxing In memoriam (2025)Ricky Hatton was British boxing's beating heart. A Manchester lad who never forgot where he came from, he turned a relentless body attack and a grin you could spot from the back row into one of the most loved careers of his generation.
Born in Stockport in 1978, Hatton turned professional at 18 and built a 43-0 record on his way to becoming the IBF light-welterweight world champion. The 2005 demolition of Kostya Tszyu at the MEN Arena remains one of the great nights in British boxing, a brutal eleven-round statement against a man most had thought unbeatable. He added the WBA welterweight title in 2006 and filled Las Vegas with 30,000 travelling fans for the Mayweather fight in 2007.
Away from the ring he was unmistakably himself, loud, warm, and allergic to airs and graces. He spoke openly about the struggles that followed retirement, and used that honesty to help others. Audiences at his after-dinner nights loved him for it. He told the Tszyu story, the Mayweather story, and the one about ballooning between fights, with the same unvarnished Mancunian timing.
Hatton was a regular on the Steam speaker calendar and appeared at the venue in May 2025, one of his last London speaking engagements. He died in September 2025, aged 46. The response from the boxing world, from Manchester, and from the fans who packed his memorial at the AO Arena, said everything about the man.
Steam remembers Ricky as a guest who treated the staff, the waiters, and the back tables exactly the same as the head table. That, more than any belt, was the measure of him.
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