You will not have heard of Grover Wiley, but Julio Cesar Chavez has, and there are plenty of reasons why Ricky Hatton ought to look him up in the process of pondering his fighting future.
Grover Wiley was a welterweight club-fighter from the boxing hotbed that is Omaha, Nebraska. He had done nothing to suggest he deserved to share the same bill as the legendary Chavez, let alone the same ring.
Their fight, when it happened, was utterly one-sided. Right hands were hammering their target all night long. The fight was called over with one fighter staying on his stool when the bell rang to start round six. That fighter was Chavez.
The Mexican superstar – sure to go down in history as one of the finest and most ferocious fighters who ever lived – had fought on too long and only succeeded in fashioning for himself the most ignominious of exits.
Before he fought Chavez, Wiley had lost two of his previous three fights by knockout. After beating Chavez, Wiley fought six more times, including once against Chavez’s son. He lost the lot.
One can imagine, however, the scene in the Wiley household since: the tall stories for the neighbours, the local newspaper calling up on anniversaries; the pride at having lit up an average career by finishing off a ‘Hall of Fame’ name.
Hatton has achieved too much and inspired too many to allow his own name to be dragged down to a mere dinner party anecdote. But that is precisely what he risks if he entertains the notion of a so-called ‘goodbye fight.’
As one radio pundit said in the wake of Hatton’s devastating knockout defeat to Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas on Saturday night: there are no testimonials in boxing. No chance to stretch the muscles one last time and come off to cheers at the interval.
Only the acute embarrassment of having those fans who once touted you as just about the pound-for-pound greatest in the world, who revelled in your savage knockouts, realise just how much those wars have taken out of you.
There is nowhere to hide under the bright ring lights, and no matter where the Hatton team trawl for a suitably harmless opponent, there is the real possibility he would become another Grover Wiley.
Consider the last time they trawled the Tex-Mex hinterlands for a suitable roadsweeper for Hatton’s much-vaunted Manchester ‘Homecoming’ following his knockout defeat by Floyd Mayweather.
They came up with a semi-retired, light-punching fringe contender called Juan Lazcano – who came dangerously close to providing Hatton’s own Grover Wiley moment by having the audacity to test his failing punch resistance in the late rounds.
Worse, even worse, would be if Hatton convinced himself he still had a top-level future – and there were plenty of acolytes last Saturday night who hedged their bets about his plans while their man was lying in a hospital bed.
He’s only lost to the two best fighters on the planet: true. That punch would have floored any man: true. His big build-up was less than ideal: true. It would have been different if he’d followed the game-plan: false, false, false.
Face it: Hatton was not quite good enough to ascend to the pound-for-pound crown – but that ought not to be a cause for regret. He has accomplished more, historically and financially, than most global fighters will ever dream of.
He has provided British boxing with some of its most indelible memories: his stunning title victory over Kostya Tszyu in the early hours of that Manchester morning; the savage body shot which left Jose Luis Castillo down and out.
We want to savour those days with him: days which have not ended in shame but in a kind of gutsy glory. Few would have stepped into the ring with Pacquiao in the first place. Ricky would fight anyone. Except, please, his Grover Wiley.
*********
Carl Froch said something interesting about Ricky Hatton the other day. “He’s achieved all he can achieve,” said Froch, Britain’s only remaining world champion.”If I were in his position after that performance I’d definitely retire.”
Odd, then, that Froch does not prescribe the same contented future for Joe Calzaghe, whose attempts to snuggle deeper into his slippers are constantly interrupted by the unseemly jibes of the Nottingham man.
Froch was heroic in his come-from-behind victory over Jermain Taylor, and he is doing himself a great disservice by harping on about a fighter from a previous era who has made it quite clear he has had enough.
We do not hear David Haye stoop so low as to try to lure Lennox Lewis out of retirement. Nor would we expect Amir Khan to rubbish Hatton’s imminent retirement plans.
Froch needs to stop nagging, and concentrate instead on improving the kind of porous defence which a peak Calzaghe would have picked holes in any day of the week.
