Congratulations to Denton Vassell and Craig Watson

Firstly congratulations to my fighters Denton Vassell and Craig Watson on becoming the Commonwealth Welterweight and Commonwealth Light Middleweight Champions respectively at our boxing show in Wigan on Friday night.

Denton is another fighter from the Bob Shannon conveyor belt who trains at my boxing gym in Hyde. I have never seen a boxer train as hard as Denton and it is very pleasing to see both his and Bob Shannon’s hard work being rewarded.

Its well documented that Denton works for a bank and there were plenty of promotional photographs of him last week wearing a bowler hat, however hats off must really go to Craig Watson who saved the show on Friday night when another boxer Tommy McDonagh pulled out leaving the show in jeopardy. Craig is the former Commonwealth Welterweight Champion and has never boxed at light middleweight before however he had no hesitation in taking the fight at two days notice against the dangerous Ugandan Badru Lasumbya who had a very impressive record and reputation. I was absolutely thrilled when Craig won the fight after knocking him down four times in the second round.

In a weekend when all the talk has been about the Manchester derby albeit my team was robbed again! There are plenty of potential Manchester boxing derby’s with Denton and Craig joining my brother Matthew as champions and with exciting Mark Thompson waiting in the wings.

I should have been a studio guest with Chris Moyles on the Radio One breakfast show this week but unfortunately it has been cancelled as Chris is stuck in New York due to the current flight cancelations. This has also affected my mum and dad who can’t get back from Tenerife.

I was pleased to invite ten high profile Manchester businessmen to my gym in Hyde to launch their charity challenge last week. Starting on 16 May 2010, Manchester’s top entrepreneurs will be running 10x10k races in 10 countries over five days in aid of the NSPCC’s Hear Our Cry appeal.They are starting with the Manchester 10K on the 16th May followed by Amstersdam, Brussels, Cologne, Luxumbourg, Geneva, San Remo, Monaco and Nice, before finishing in Barcelona. Big thanks to one of my trainers Richard Heap for sharing his invaluable knowledge with the runners who will no doubt need it.

In 1997 Mike Tyson got a little frustrated with Evander Holyfield in their fight at the MGM Grand Las Vegas. So what does he do? starts eating Holyfields ear and then gets disqualified by referee Mills Lane. A knock on effect,no pun, is that Boxing was banned in Bury.

I am pleased to announce that Gareth Williams from Hatton Promotions has had the ban lifted. Gareth is from Bury and was passionate about taking Professional boxing back to his home town.

On the 29th may this year Bury Born, Super bantamweight, Scott Quigg will make his Home town debut at the Castle Leisure centre, Bury on our "Back Home" promotion.

Scott is unbeaten in 17 fights and ranked number three in Britain. I am very excited about Scott and I am sure that it is only a matter of time before he wins another title for Hatton promotions.

My acting Career continued with a walk on part, as myself, in Shameless last week. Some people might have missed the part as it was shown after the credits. It’s the second Television role I have had. Who knows I could be the next Vinnie Jones and return to Vegas in a different role. I won’t hold my breath.

Congratulations to Mathew

I must start this week’s diary off by saying a big congratulations to my brother Matthew for winning the European light welterweight title. He was a big underdog for the fight, taking it at only three weeks notice, but I always had the confidence he would win and prove all his doubters wrong. I was more nervous watching him than being in the ring myself and I don’t think it’ll be long before the Hatton family have another world champion.

It has been a successful few weeks for my boxing gym in Hyde with Prince Arron winning the recent light middleweight Prizefighter, and on April 16th Denton Vassell challenges for the Commonwealth welterweight title on our show at the Robin Park Arena in Wigan.

Denton is a fighter after my own heart with a crowd-pleasing style and notched up his fourteenth win in London. Joe Murray had his best win to date on the same card, beating the tough Yuri Voronin, and I’m sure Denton, Joe and Matthew will be flying the Hatton flag in Las Vegas soon enough.

Also on April 16th we see Tommy McDonagh get a chance to win the Commonwealth light middleweight title. Tommy is another exciting fighter and I’m reliably informed he’s fitter than ever after going on punishing runs over Holcombe Hill with emerging Bury boxing star Scott Quigg.

Whilst in London I had the chance to see my good friend Noel Gallagher playing at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a fantastic gig and it brought back such happy memories for me after fighting there in my twelfth fight. It is a fantastic venue and now I’m a promoter I’d love to stage a show there in the future. It has even inspired me to start guitar lessons along with my son Campbell. Having said that, I can’t see Noel inviting us on stage anytime soon!

The other big boxing news last week was Joan Guzman, who came in nine pounds overweight for his world title fight in Las Vegas. I read with interest that he now wants to fight me, but before he worries about who he is fighting next he needs to concentrate on his training. I am criticised about the amount of weight I put on between fights, but in 47 contests I have never once come in overweight.

Guzman is trained by Lee Beard, who assisted me for a couple of fights, and there must have been a problem because my good friend, and world renowned nutritionist, Kerry Kayes was brought in to assist them. Despite Kerry’s experience he obviously didn’t have enough time to help Guzman shift the weight. Guzman is a two weight world champion and someone of that experience should not come in so overweight. It was extremely unprofessional and if any of my fighters did that I’d call them in for a shellacking.

Hopefully by the time people will be reading this David Haye will have retained his WBA Heavyweight title against John Ruiz. David is a wonderful fighter and it’s outstanding to see a good friend of mine fly the flag for Britain at the MEN Arena, a venue in which I had so many fantastic nights.

British boxing has a lot to be proud of at the moment with David Haye, Amir Khan and Carl Froch who faces Mikkel Kessler this month. I just hope that the fighters in my stable can have the same success as the aforementioned trio and proudly fly the flag for British boxing.