I was friends with Ricky Hatton - the heartbreaking reason he felt he'd let people down
Monday marks one year since the untimely death of boxing legend Ricky Hatton. Sports journalist Adam Smith remembers his ferocious talent and generous heart
He was the failed carpet fitter from Stockport who became the two-weight world champion boxer known as “The Hitman”. Ricky Hatton seized titles in the boxing ring, winning 45 out of his 48 professional fights (32 by knockouts), and won hearts outside of it as the down-to-earth “people’s champion” who stayed grounded despite his superstar status.
Now a new book has been published to mark the first anniversary of his tragic death at the age of 46. It’s written by his friend, sports writer and Sky broadcaster Adam Smith, who gave an incredibly moving eulogy at the boxer’s funeral in Manchester Cathedral, and describes it as his “love letter to Ricky”.
Adam was given full access to the Hatton family for the book. “As a boxing broadcaster you have to be totally neutral but I have written this book as a friend of Ricky, to keep his memory alive,” he says. “Ricky was very open about his struggles with mental health and I hope the book encourages people to talk more.”
To that end Adam will donate the proceeds of the book to two mental health charities: Mind, and the Ricky Hatton Foundation, which was established following the boxer’s death. “I felt like I hadn’t had time to properly grieve Ricky so writing has helped with that, not because I claim a greater grief than others, but because the grief compelled me to,” he says.
The book presents the many different sides of Hatton: the gifted and dedicated fighter, the family man, the loyal friend and the absolute life and soul of the party.
His celebrity pals included Freddie Flintoff, Noel and Liam Gallagher, Wayne Rooney and Paddy McGuinness. He also dated Coronation Street actress Claire Sweeney for eight months, with the pair remaining good friends afterwards.
“I miss his enthusiasm, his humour, his laugh – that irrepressible, mischievous cackle. Most of all, I miss his humanity,” Adam admits.
He takes readers on a journey from ringside and backstage to bars, cars, kebab shops and late-night hotel corridors, remembering the triumphs, meltdowns, laughter and heartbreak that was Ricky’s life.
He remembers a typical night out in Manchester with his friend. "There was a right mixture of drunken characters on the hunt for late night food, and at first nobody took any notice. Rick’s order was utterly mental. There was a mixture of chips and gravy, chips and curry sauce, chips and some unidentifiable other sauce, doner kebabs, chicken kebabs, double chicken shish, a couple of burgers and a f***ing extra-large pizza too!
“Then he turned to me and said: ‘What’s your order, Ad?’ When the food came they started chanting, ‘You fat bastard!’
“Ricky loved it and started handing out the majority of his food (and trust me that order was all meant for him) to complete strangers. He only ever wanted to be one of the lads and have bundles of fun. It was a late night riot.”
Adam also writes movingly about how it was Hatton who helped him through his own life and death battle with bladder cancer in 2023, providing him with the strength and support he needed to recover.
“We kept in touch when I was in hospital going through what was the worst period of my life, in incredible pain, having a stoma, and looking like a skeleton.
“I shut myself off from most people but I still wanted to talk to Ricky because I felt he understood about hard times and would still be able to make me smile.”
Hatton grew up in the New Inn pub on the Hattersley council estate in Hyde, Greater Manchester, with his parents Carol and Ray, the pub’s landlord, and his younger brother Matthew, also a former professional boxer.
On leaving school he joined the family carpet business but soon found it wasn’t his calling. “After he cut four of his fingers with a Stanley knife, his father made him a salesman to prevent him from losing his finger,” smiles Adam.
He turned professional in 1997 aged 18 and his career pinnacle came in 2005 at the MEN Arena in Manchester when he defeated Kostya Tszyu to claim the IBF and Ring Magazine junior welterweight titles.
In 2005 he was named Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine, the Boxing Writers Association of America, ESPN, and BoxingScene.
Making his welterweight debut in 2006, Hatton won a tough fight against WBA champion Luis Collazo to win a world title in his second weight class.
A return to light welterweight in 2007 saw him win the vacant IBF title for a second time, as well as the International Boxing Organization (IBO) title. But his time at the top was about to come crashing down. In the same year, he suffered his first defeat against
Adam describes “the raucous fan base that travelled in their tens of thousands across the Atlantic to support him” but today admits that he felt his friend would lose in the ringside, although “he put up an incredible fight.”
The defeat took a severe toll on Hatton’s wellbeing, as did a second defeat in 2009 when he lost his light welterweight titles to Manny Pacquiao. “It was such a bad knockout that Hatton was out before he hit the canvas,” Adam recalls.
“He never really recovered from losing those fights, even years later he felt like he had let everyone down, that fans had spent all their hard earned money to go to Vegas and he had lost. It was incredibly hard for him.”
After retiring in 2011, Hatton struggled openly with mental health, addiction, and adjusting to life outside boxing. One year later he announced his comeback only to lose to Vyacheslav Senchenko prompting him to immediately announce his retirement again. He remained retired for 13 years before announcing a comeback in July 2025.
But Ricky died on September 14 of that year before he could make his third return to the ring. He was found “unresponsive” at home, his cause of death determined as hanging. T he coroner’s verdict stopped short of suicide as there was no note.
“When I heard the news I thought it was a wind up at first. And then it was just utter shock,” Adam says quietly.
A 2026 inquest concluded his death involved alcohol and signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive brain disease linked to boxing.
Ricky’s son Campbell, 25, told the court “he had made plans for the future”, while his former partner Jennifer Dooley called him “an active, present and loving father” to their daughters Millie, 13, and Fearne, 12.
“I saw him about four weeks before he died and he seemed happy,” Adam remembers, “although maybe that’s euphoric recall. He had his big house, his kids and an exhibition match lined up where his daughters were to see him fight for the first time.”
Adam, a father-of-three himself, adds: “Like his fight song, Blue Moon, in the end he was alone just as when he stepped into the ring – despite all the noise around him, he was alone.”
As Sky’s boxing reporter, Adam often sat at the end of the front row, right next to the steps where Ricky would climb and address the crowd before battle. “He was such a wicked fighter both to study and to watch. His hands, his feet, the boxing skills, mixed with that aggression, attitude and an astonishing desire to come forward, entertain and win at all costs was just marvellous.”
It is testament to Ricky’s popularity that so many famous faces have paid their own tributes to him in Adam’s book. Wayne Rooney wrote: “I had the privilege of carrying the belt for the Castillo fight; we always had so much fun. Ricky was the relatable working-class hero."
Freddie Flintoff, who wrote the prologue to the book and has endured his own mental health battles, added: “We were just two lads who were good at sport from the North West. “A huge part of Ricky’s power was that people identified with him. Everyone could see a bit of themselves in him.”
Noel Gallagher remembered: “When he asked us to carry those belts, it was so incredible. As rock stars you can get a bit blasé, but we were really nervous carrying them out. It was Vegas, the MGM, he was still at the very top and it was just a great night to be in the ring.
"It was an absolute honour to know him and carry his belts,” Liam wrote. “We had legendary nights with him. He was unbelievably funny.”
Former girlfriend Claire Sweeney also gave her insight into Ricky’s struggles after the Mayweather defeat, talking for the first time about him. “He was so desperate to win. So many had paid to go over and he felt he’d let the fans down. Ricky talked about it a lot to me and just kept mentioning that he had let the people down.”
Claire and Ricky met as contestants on ITV’s Dancing on Ice in 2024. “I was better than him on the ice,” Claire shared in the book. “I miss the laughter, even after we split; we were great pals. I was blessed to be part of his life.”
But his former partner and mother of his two daughters Jennifer Dooley added: “I always knew he wasn’t going to be an old man. He lived for everybody else.”
Hatton had his struggles, many of them outside the ring. In 2010, an undercover video of Ricky taking cocaine during a drink and drugs binge emerged. Police investigated and althought no further was taken, Ricky’s boxing licence was suspended. He checked into a rehabilitation facility and issued a statement saying he was “devastated and distraught”.
One year earlier, he fell out with his parents, seemingly because of a major financial dispute. They remained estranged for nine years but reconciled in 2019. “I steered clear of that in the book because it is none of my business,” says Adam about the family fallout. It happened but wasn’t what I wanted to write about.” Instead in his eulogy Adam said: “There is – and only ever will be – one Ricky Hatton. “I will forever love him, his fights, his friendship, his fun, his adoration of life. We all will. What a ride it was.”
*Ricky Hatton: The Light That Never Goes Out by Adam Smith (Seven Dials, £25) is out now). Proceeds from the book will help support work on mental health.