The Hatton household seems to be the ideal place to get some rounds in – and it no punches are pulled.
Campbell Hatton is off to a good start in his fledgling boxing career, winning eight from eight with two knockouts. Many will say that it’s hardly a surprise, given who’s raised him – and it turns out that there has been sparring going on in the family home for some years now.
The 21-year-old Hatton told The Sportsman of an incident when he was 14, and hinted that there’s one person his dad Ricky is scared of, despite being a former world champion.
“He dropped me as a kid. He’s the only man to drop me. We had a little spar, I must have been about 14. I was having a move around, he was holding off obviously and then I think a little bit of muscle memory and he just sunk a left up to the body and dropped me. The first thing he said was ‘Don’t tell your Mum!’”
Things have changed though – Campbell is in the professional game with an undefeated campaign underway, so what’s it like when they spar nowadays? The father-son duo found out recently.
“You could have done it in a phone box. It must have been a mad one to watch. But I was surprised. I knew I knew he’d be sharp because when you’ve boxed at such a good level and you’ve got that boxing brain, you’ll never really lose that. He had a good six-threes in him and neither of us pulled any punches. It was at a right pace. I was surprised just how fit he was, after all that time out. It just gave me more that he’s going to perform.”
The young Hatton returns to the ring on the undercard of Dmitry Bivol’s light-heavyweight title defence against Gilberto Ramirez in Abu Dhabi on November 5, whilst his elder is coming back for an exhibition with Mexican legend, Marco Antonio Barrera, on November 12.