As Hatton's been said I'm gonna add in Pac. Phillipinos go nuts for the man. Neither were at the level of a Mike Tyson or Mohammad ali for support though.
Have you ever been to a Ricky Hatton boxing event though? because if so then you'll agree that those fans are the most amazing fans boxing has ever seen, even if the song is repetitive and annoying which I agree it is.
It's nice to know boxing is about as big as socccer in the US. At least it sounds that way the way apparently Hatton and the Klitschkos can fill stadiums on a regular basis, while in the US you name has to be Manny Pacquaio to score that kind of crowd. A guy here thinks he's the **** if can draw more than 10,000. Now that I think about it, who are the biggest draws other than Manny...a Puerto Rican (Cotto), a Pollock (Adamek), and a ****** (Mayweather). Damn...
yes but hatton sells out in other countries I have seen Calzaghe in vegas and NY and neither was close to being a sell out. I also saw Klitscko it NY and again nowhere near a sellout. But for Hatton I have been to 3 fights in Vegas, all sell outs and on the PBF fight I had to pay well over the odds.
I've never seen any fans quite like Ricky Hatton's. Seriously. He comes to Vegas and damn near brings all of UK with him.
Never been to a Hatton fight, I'm sure the atmosphere would be great but even on tv that singing does my ****ing head in.
Nah I'm not having that. "Proper" boxing fans are few and far between in Britain, Hatton was a big draw because marketed himself to football fans and it became fasionable to watch him. The vast majority of his fans, while passionate, are/were clueless about boxing generally speaking. I'm as proud as the next Brit about the noise we make and the backing we give our fighters but lets not pretend Hatton had 20000 boxing historians following him to Vegas, most of them were pissed up football fans who learned everything they know about boxing from watching the Rocky boxset.
The majority of them couldnt afford to go to his fights but when Duran beat Leonard there was 700000 people to greet him when he got back to Panama. Thats a ridicolous number of people just to catch a glimpse of him
That may be the case in Stockport , but not Liverpool mate !!! , every fight i go to i make a point of interacting with people around me , and while i dont often find " boxing historians " in the crowd i seldomly come across anybody " who knows nothing about boxing " !!!! :deal , what exactly are you not having BTW ??? :huh
Agree with you here. Britain isn't some boxing mecca, there's not that many pure boxing fans here. I'm not the most knowledgable boxing fan but I know the basics of what is and what has gone on. I've heard people who claim to be boxing fans who don't know who Carrl Froch is (this was at christmas time), never heard of Kessler, don't understand a thing about the rules, not sure what weight class any fighter is in etc. There's a lot of 'fans' like that in Britain. Not saying Hatton's fans weren't absolutely amazing, just that being a Brit doesn't mean we're any more likely to know **** about boxing.
Every good boxer needs a crowd of banging on drums and singing like the drunken fools they are...seriously. That's half the fun of watching a Hatton fight. Imagine if someone Dirrell had that. Walking along, a slip and a fall... Walking in Dirrell Wonderland!