Brits like their Hatton
MANCHESTER, England – “Three sausage, three bacon, two hash browns, two black pudding. … “
Wait, a point of information: Black pudding is a sausage made from pig’s blood et al., but now let’s continue with manager Alison Threadgold of the wee Butty Box cafe in Hyde on the thoroughly unpretentious eastern edge of Manchester, as she reels off items in the “Megabreakfast” …
“…two slices of Spam, two eggs, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes …”
This Lipitor daydream goes for 4.50 pounds ($9.26 as of Tuesday) and doubles as Ricky Hatton’s favorite meal, but hold on, she’s not finished …
” … two pieces of toast, and tea or coffee.”
So the “or” represents the lone restraint?
Hatton, who used to down the “Mega” traditionally between adoring well-wishes on fight mornings, has earned millions boxing, he’s 43-0, he’ll fight similarly unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Saturday night in Las Vegas for the PPBFIW title (pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, as they say), has a whole nation loving, but better yet, liking him.
“No airs or graces,” they say about the Butty Box, and about Hyde, and Manchester, and always, always about Hatton.
On a sports planet utterly besotted with PR and marketing of elite athletes, here’s a 29-year-old elite athlete who lacks the PR-and-marketing gene to such degree it’s bracing, yet has wound up wildly popular because – because people do love the absence of PR.
“I think that’s why, to be fair, he’s so well-liked throughout the world,” said David “Duck” Owen, a New Inn pub denizen in Hatton’s home of Hattersley who has known Hatton forever. “No one could have any dirt on him ‘cause he tells it to you! That’s what’s good, because it spoils it, doesn’t it?”
It’s not just that he’ll tell about his fondness for a Guinness or several or for a fat gram or several hundred. It’s the way-it-is tone that craves no approval and dreads no disapproval. When wrapped in approachability and suitable wit, it can win over a country.
“I don’t lie about a single thing,” Hatton told reporters last week on a conference call. “People say, ‘Do you like to have a drink of alcohol?’ and I say, ‘Yes, yes, of course, I love to.’ ‘And do you like fat foods?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And do you put weight on?’ ‘Yes.’ And these people are maybe a little bit more vain, would probably not admit to that, and I do.
“And I think with what you see with me, you see an honesty in my life, the way I am, period. There’s honesty in the way I train for me fights.”
In ersatz-Ali mode, Mayweather even tried the “Ricky Fatton” insult born of Hatton’s habitual cycle of Butty Box and Guinness followed by prefight whittling of the Butty Box and Guinness.
Hatton’s reaction? “I guess he doesn’t realize I named myself ‘Ricky Fatton’ in the first place.”
Honest. Humble. Heart. Above all, he has heart. That’s what Mayweather has to conquer.