Ricky Hatton’s long-time manager and friend, who found the tragic boxer dead at his home, says: ‘I firmly believe he didn’t intend to do it… he had it all to live for.’
Paul Speak recalled the ‘shock and confusion’ of discovering Hatton at his £1.7million home, where he let himself in before ‘hearing music coming from upstairs’.
Hatton, 46, had arranged to take his daughters Millie and Fearne to see Oasis play, was planning a Christmas holiday to Tenerife and a boxing comeback.
The former world champion boxer had revealed his suicidal thoughts and problems with addiction in the past but his family have said he was in a ‘good place’ before his death.
Speak told Boxing News magazine: ‘The lights weren’t on, which I thought was strange. I thought he’d overslept, but it’s not unusual. People do oversleep.’
‘I heard music coming from upstairs, so I went upstairs… I took a look at him… I had to take some time to process it.
Ricky Hatton died earlier this month at the age of just 46
The former world champion boxer’s body was found by his manager Paul Speak (right) at his home in Hyde, Manchester
A host of tributes were left outside the northern property following Hatton’s passing
‘I was in a state of shock and confusion and loss and many more emotions. Then I called the police and the ambulance.
‘But I firmly believe he didn’t intend to do it. It’s for the coroner to determine, but he had it all to live for.’
Hatton had appeared in good spirits in the days before his death. His final post on Instagram showed him keeping fit in the gym ahead of a highly-anticipated return to the ring in December.
The Mancunian had also filmed an uplifting video in his final week for a child who was the victim of bullying.
He was due to board a flight to Dubai just a day after his passing to sign a contract confirming his comeback to boxing with a bout against Eisa Al Dah.
However alarms were raised after the 46-year-old failed to show at a boxing event for one of the fighters on Saturday, with Speak finding his lifeless body the following morning.
Hatton’s manager said: ‘If this was 10 years ago, it wouldn’t have been as big a shock as it was.
‘I’ve been with Ricky to the very highest mountains in boxing to the lowest chasm in life.’
Hatton pictured in Manchester less than a month before his passing
Hatton had been open about his own demons throughout his career, having struggled with drug and alcohol addictions and mental health problems.
In a 2017 interview on Loose Women, the fighter admitted ‘he contemplated suicide many times’.
‘After the [Floyd] Mayweather fight I started drinking a lot more heavily and ultimately I fell out with my parents and that was difficult for me and I did not care if I lived or died,’ Hatton said.
‘I contemplated suicide many, many times. I started thinking of different ways to get through it and I thought I could drink myself to death.
‘So consequently I got more depressed and I ended up taking drugs to enable me to drink more and it was a vicious circle.’
He said: ‘It was my first taste of defeat as a pro after 35 fights. Even though it was Floyd Mayweather, I turned up thinking I was going to beat him.
‘I became so used to success and then all of a sudden it was like “I’m not used to this”.’
A host of the biggest names in boxing and the wider sporting world paid tribute to Hatton following his sad passing.
Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, who knew the 46-year-old well, described him ‘as the last of a rare breed of boxers’.
At the Conor Benn against Chris Eubank press conference, Hearn said: ‘I think it was so important to say something,’ he said, ‘That’s a big platform with a lot of people listening. People need to understand the importance this guy had on British boxing and to people individually.
The fighter had been open about his struggles with mental health throughout his career
Eddie Hearn described Hatton as the ‘last of a rare breed of boxers’
‘As you saw up there, it’s quite a toxic business and in a toxic business for no one to have ever said a bad word about Ricky Hatton just shows you what kind of individual he was.
‘He was the last of a rare breed of boxers and athletes who built their popularity without social media. Without a content team following them around and film certain things as it’ll look good for their imagine.
‘He was just a pure soul with a clean heart that a city fell in love with and then a country fell in love with. He was a guy that gave all of him time to anyone. It doesn’t matter whether you were a CEO of a broadcast company or the person cleaning up afterwards, he gave the same time and respect to both.
‘In a world where he needed help himself, he always chose to help others first. We saw that even recently. He filmed videos and sent videos in the last week or two weeks to people who were struggling saying keep at it, keep fighting. He was an incredible person.’
Hatton’s official cause of death is yet to be determined.
