The fallen boxer has become such a clich? that the news of Ricky Hatton’s descent into depression, drink and, allegedly, drugs will have been met with little more than a disappointed shrug by many. Murder, rape, battery, suicide, larceny – boxing has seen it all many times over down the years, to the extent that Hatton’s actions seem small fry in comparison, which is not to make light of his predicament.
Only last May, in the wake of Hatton’s shattering defeat at the hands of Manny Pacquiao, BBC Radio 5 live dedicated an entire show to the lot of the retired fighter, in which British greats Barry McGuigan, Nigel Benn, Ken Buchanan and Frank Bruno told of their difficulty in adapting to life after boxing.
Some demons are shared – with Hatton and each other – and some demons are their own. But the overriding message is clear – that once the spotlight dims and the roar of the crowd fades, boxers often find themselves in a lonely, bewildering and bitter place.
Excerpts from the interviews, conducted by BBC boxing commentator Mike Costello and McGuigan himself, can be found below and can also be heard again on BBC 5 live Boxing on Thursday between 2130-2230 BST.
Hatton was knocked out by Floyd Mayweather in 2007 – but his biggest fight could be outside the ring
Barry McGuigan – WBA featherweight champion 1985-86
When the final bell tolls for a fighter, that seems to be when all the problems happen and the toughest fight begins.
As a boxer, you become institutionalised. Your day is mapped out, you are told when to get up, how to train and what to eat. And for every Frank Bruno or Nigel Benn, there are a thousand boxers who retire without having made serious money from their careers.
I’ll never forget the morning after the day I retired – it was 1 June, 1989. I was 29-years-old, had four kids, no education, no qualifications and no guaranteed future. I had to start all over again and it was a scary time, I can tell you.
Several factors helped me pull through. I had a great family who had always been there for me and real friends. A lot of kids who come into boxing come from broken homes and don’t have any family guidance. Lots of fighters are surrounded by hangers-on and have ephemeral friendships that only last as long as their success.
I had also invested my money reasonably wisely and hadn’t been taken for a fool by anyone. That’s not to say I didn’t have dark days, when I was down and doubted myself, but I worked hard and have been able to forge a new life.
The paradox of boxing is you’re in an individual sport and yet you’re part of a team. But the truth is, when the bell rings, you’re on your own. And that’s a metaphor for life outside the ring, because when your career’s over, you’re also on your own.
You have to give more of yourself in boxing than in any other sport – you can die in the ring, you can legally kill somebody. So you’d have to be the most sensible, level-headed guy in the world when it’s all over to say “I did my best and got to where I wanted to go, I’ll go back to doing a 9-to-5 job and digging holes in the road”.
The sense you get from success in the ring, it’s like a Class A drug. You walk away from it and it’s impossible to let it go – nothing will ever replace what it was like in the ring for the rest of your days.
Benn’s two fights against Chris Eubank in the early 1990s made both fighters household names
Nigel Benn – WBO middleweight champion 1990; WBC super-middleweight champion 1992-96
I wanted fame, money, women – you name it, I wanted it all. But did I have peace? No, I had more trouble, more heartache, more darkness. My life was in total disarray.
I was trying to fill the darkness with women, going out clubbing, partying – something was missing in my life. I’d made a lot of money – millions – and I had people who wanted to be around me, to sponge off me. I thought they were my friends but I never had any friends. I’d go out and buy champagne and I didn’t even drink champagne.
Everyone was around me to see what they could get out of me. My life was like that all through my career. I was just a pawn, to make people money. If it wasn’t for my wife and Jesus coming into my life, I’d either be six feet under or in a mental hospital.
The sport of boxing doesn’t worry about fighters, it’s all about making pound notes. They don’t care if I break my arm, there’s another Nigel Benn on the way. And they shouldn’t care, it was my choice – everything I did was what I wanted to do.
I’d say to fighters like James DeGale and David Haye: “Be careful, you’ve got to be strong.” I was very weak. It’s about making sure you have a good foundation, a good family and network of people around you, because you can easily get drawn away from them like I did. But it’s a sport that I loved – and that I still love.
Ken Buchanan – WBA lightweight champion 1970-1972
When I was eight, I started boxing and was only 3st 2lb when I won my first championship in 1953. When I came out of the ring I said: “Right Dad, that’s my first title, I’m going to be world champion.” He said: “You stick in, son, just leave the women alone, leave the drinking alone and leave the smoking alone.” I said: “Dad, I’m only eight.” And he said: “I mean when you get older.”
People say I went bankrupt but that is the biggest load of rubbish. Ken Buchanan has never been bankrupt in his life. I never reached the gutter, I never even left the pavement. But there are times when I get fed up and I go out and have a ‘swallow’.
I’ve been to these people and those people and Alcoholics Anonymous but I couldn’t take to it. People say I drink this and I do that, and I think: “I’m not as bad as that.” But it has played a big part in my life, this drink. It has been a big problem for me for a while.
The fighter’s hardest fight is once he’s retired, definitely. You sit down and you get time to reflect upon things you’ve done in the boxing ring and you think to yourself: “I was worth a lot more than that, how did I let them take that off me, how did I fight for that amount of money?”
You think about all the things you could have done to stop it. I just wanted to be a boxer, I just wanted to be the world champion. The money, I wasn’t interested in, that was a bonus to me – I was just interested in putting Edinburgh and Scotland on the map.
Frank Bruno – WBC heavyweight champion 1995-96
From the time I started boxing when I was eight I was dreaming of becoming the heavyweight champion of the world. I had a lot of opportunities – I fought Lennox Lewis, got beat; Tim Witherspoon, got beat; Mike Tyson, got beat. Then, at 33, I got my last attempt against Oliver McCall. Achieving my dream after all those years was the most beautiful experience – but it only lasted about five minutes.
George Francis [my trainer] said to me: “When you’ve finished with boxing, it’s going to be one of the most difficult things.” I didn’t quite understand what he meant until I retired.
No-one’s going to support you if you don’t support yourself – you can look for help here and there but it’s a very wicked world where everybody looks out for themselves. You have got to look in the mirror when you make mistakes and say: “Hands up, it’s my fault.”
When you break up with someone you love, when you’ve put all your body and soul into your wife and your kids and then you hear they want you out of the house, it all comes on top of you. I just couldn’t handle it. How do you handle it?
You look at some people and they let themselves go but it’s important, whatever you do in life, to maintain that fitness – it’s like a massage for the brain and keeps you focused. I stopped training for a year and they sectioned me. Once you stop something, the tension builds up, you get a bit aggressive.
There are opportunities to make a lot of money [in boxing] but you need to be like a squirrel and put some under the floorboards. And after you’ve finished boxing, don’t just end up down the pub, keep your mind occupied and your body in shape. That’s the best advice I could give.
