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.
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