5 Live Boxing with Steve Bunce - Remembering Hatton with Costello and Bunce

Episode Date: September 14, 2025

Buncey is joined by the former BBC Boxing correspondent Mike Costello to look back on the life and career of Ricky Hatton who died at the age of 46. They share their memories of the man who will be remembered as one of the best from the UK.

This is Five Live Boxing. In the last few hours, we've received the news that Ricky Hatton has died. It'd be impossible, really, to put together a show capturing every detail and every facet and every part of Ricky Hatton's life. But I'm going to try, and there's only one man I'm going to try that with. That's my colleague, colleague forever, colleague for life. Mike Costello. I'm Steve Bunce with Mike Costello, and this is a very special Five Live. boxing. So Mike, some, well, shocking, dreadful, whatever you want to say, just quite

shattering news this morning. I'm going to ask you that thing that we say to people when they found out when they got a big fight or something like that. Where were you? What was your reaction when you heard about Ricky? I was just about to leave home, Steve, at Sunday lunchtime for a family gathering and was hit by this news. Firstly, somebody from my family in Manchester, very close to where Hatton was born and raised, rang. And then I checked everything online and just couldn't believe it for first of all, Steve.

I know he's had his issues in the past, but it was still such a staggering shock, given that we'd seen so much of him just recently and he was talking, you know, really bullishly about coming back again. And looking. I know it was only an exhibition, but it was giving him a sense of purpose and there were those who were saying he was looking okay

and the gym again emotionally as well as physically. So it was absolutely devastating news. So let me just point out that right at this moment, we've not been given a cause of death. We're recording this seven, eight hours after the world found out. So we'll just crack on. I don't want to make this a morbid fest, Mike. I really don't.

I'd like to go through your memories because like me, your memories go back 15, 16, 17, 18 years with Ricky. And we'll see if we can, I don't know, put a, I don't know, put a bit of a spin, put a bit of a twist on what has been a dreadful day. So forget when it, what happened, how you reacted today. When did Ricky first show up on your radar, Mike? The first time I saw Ricky actually boxed, Steve, was in 1997 in the finals of the

ABA championships. ABAs. That particular year were televised on the BBC, but were held at the indoor arena in Birmingham, the one in the centre of town near all the canals. And he fought in the final there and beat a lad called Oscar Hall and looked very impressive in doing so. But so many ABA champions do, Steve, don't they? When they get that far.

Was it only 18 that night, Mike? I think he was. Yeah. Yeah, very young. And so 1997, it was still three years away from the Olympic Games. And there were those who were saying, hopefully he will stay on until Sydney in 2000. to be a prominent member of the British team. But, you know, he was already looking towards the professional ranks.

But even on that night, Steve, fair play to the commentator on BBC television at a time when those national amateur championships were still shown on BBC television, Jim Neely said at the close of the bout that this looks like a lad who could go far. Now, as commentators, we say that many times and we get it wrong, but how he justified that particular forecast on that night. So that was the first time that I saw him, Steve. But what you say there about is really, really important about not being overly morbid. I know it's difficult in the immediate hours after.

But as these days roll by, he will be remembered just how Ricky Hatton wanted to be remembered. We will be smiling, we'll be laughing. And we'll be talking about some of, in my case, the best days of my boxing life and career without doubt. Yeah, I echo that, Mike. Absolutely the best, some of the best nights, some of the very best days. And dozens of them, by the way,

not just one or two, dozens of them. When I started to look at it again today, I started to remember just how many nights, just how many times we were up at press conferences, just how many times we were out the night after all, we were out with him. Just, I mean, it's close to 25, maybe even 30, quote, events.

Going back to those ABAs, at that point, he was already working with Billy the preacher Graham, the guy that would go on to be his trainer and confident through most of his career and a man that helped shape him, and in fact, the two of them were inseparable. And he was already turning pro at that time. But do you remember when we sat with him in his gym

about four years ago? We did that thing with young Jack. He used to be the producer before Paddy came along. And we sat in his gym and he said, you know, said the mad thing, he said, I was meant to be a superstar, yeah? I was meant to be the golden boy. I was meant to be the poster boy.

and then he went, come here, and he took us over to the war. It was a Robin Reed main event, if I'm not mistaken, and he wasn't on the poster for his debut in witness. He said, that's how big a star I was. They didn't even stick my name on the poster for my first fight. And when the two of the, it's true, it's an absolute fact. That was absolutely couldn't believe that, Steve. And he was gracious enough to say, yes, I was added as a late replacement,

a late substitute on the bill. But at the same time, still not a big enough name to feature on. his professional debut. You think of some of the great champions we've had in the Ricky Hatton era and beyond. You know, that just could not have happened. But how he built from there, and I have to say, Steve,

in terms of promotion and management, the job that Frank Warren did, and I know they fell out and the father was involved as well, Ray Hatton, but the job that Frank Warren did with Ricky Hatton, which included going to the United States for his second call.

Very early. The under card of Naz and Kevin Kelly at Madison Square Garden was a template for how to develop a promising, potentially very good, very exciting, very entertaining, a very attractive fighter, step by step by step. You know, at that point, so he wins the British title and he's already attracted to the following, but he's still not a superstar.

He's still not a style. He's had 17-18 fights. In his 22nd fight, he wins a version of the World. world title. Now, whether it's a valid version is irrelevant. It was a version of a world title. And then Frank Warren starts putting him on at the MEN. I think it's 12 fights. I've wrote it down early on. I think it's 12 fights in a four-year period at the MEN. Conminated in Costa Zoo. We'll talk about that in a moment, 2005. But I can remember talking to Warren around that time, 2001 and 2002, when suddenly it's inside the MEN, which is the Manchester Arena. Inside the MEN,

they were putting drapes around, making it 2,000, 3,000. Suddenly he was selling more tickets, and they were having to remove the drapes. Until we had a situation where I'm not quite sure how many of those 12 were what we classify as a sellout, but certainly a large part of them. And those were for WBU title fights. Let's not mince our words.

We knew who was going to win. We could basically pick the round. It's irrelevant. The crowd still got 7,000, and they came back in their thousands. Way before Costa Zoo, way before we went to Las Vegas, way before we went to Boston, way before that. Mike, he was a superstar fighting WBU title fights and selling out the MEN against guys

who were perhaps five or ten years past their best. And the fans did not care. They just wanted to be there for the Ricky circus. And show by show, Steve, the Ricky story just grew and grew. You said to me, when did I first set eyes on him? and I remembered the ABA finals in Birmingham. And I've been thinking today as well about when did I really get the sense that the Ricky Hatton story was really taking off?

Because first of all, it was in pockets of Manchester, then it was the whole of Manchester, and then it spread countrywide. And I remember a fight, Steve, I think it was in 2002. So we're talking three years before he became world champion. It was at the MN Arena, as it was called then. And any time you talk about Ricky Hatton,

has to be referred to as simply the MEN. And he fought a Russian called Mikhail Krivolopov. And I think he stopped him late on, but there was something in the crowd that night. And I've long since they've had family connections to Manchester, even though I was born and raised like you in South London. And that was the first time that family members had felt the need to buy tickets to go to see this young lad.

Out of the blue. Out of the blue. Yeah, I love it. The tame side area of Manchester. And that just sparked something in me to just, that gave me the notion that this story is really beginning to travel around Manchester but beyond as well. And the performances were there to match because he was so exciting. And let's not forget, Steve, how many times early on in his career he overcame some horrific cuts. Some horrific cuts, terrible cuts, a man called Mick Williamson, keeping him in half a dozen fights at least.

Mick the Rub, as he was known, a taxi driver. Every part of Ricky Hatton is full of a story. You go down this rabbit hole, that's 20 minutes later. You go down this rabbit hole is 20 minutes later. If we could just backtrack a little bit, as I said, I'll make no apologies for this not being in sequence. I don't really care. If you go back a little bit, in 1998, 1999,

there were two other big fighters in Manchester. Anthony Farnel was doing great business, and Michael Gomez was doing great business. And they had one particular show at the Velodrome up there, maybe a couple of shows. And I've got to tell you, there was no difference between the three of them, and suddenly Ricky Hatton just pulled away,

leaving not just other Manchester fighters in his slipstream, but leaving all British fighters soon in his slipstream. And then we come to the Great Night Against Costa Zoo, where I'm going to hold my hands up. I invented a figure once for how many people were there, and it turns out it's about 1,000 and a half more than could have possibly been there, but I don't care. I said there were 21,000 there when it only holds.

18 and a half thousand, I'm never going to change it. Who cares? Because on that night, Mike, when we were locked in, if you remember, after midnight for Costa Zoo, the great Australian based in,

sorry, the great Russian based in Australia, there were thousands more in there than there should have been in there. If they'd have done a head count, that show would never have been allowed to continue. Mike, that was...

Great, great, great stories, Steve. Great, great stories. And that, for me, Steve, when I look back at my career, is one of the big misses At the time, I was working as, if you like, the understudy to John Rawling, who was the BBC's boxing correspondent.

Between us, we covered the BBC's boxing and athletics brief on radio. And that weekend in Glasgow, Kelly Holmes was beginning her final season. So I was dispatched to Glasgow. So watched Kelly Holmes in a bar in Glasgow with a load of BBC staff who were out there. So that was my memory of Ricky Hatton against Glasgow. Costa Zhu. I've been involved in so much of the build-up, so many of the interviews. And there is an element of myth as well around the build-ups, Steve. Oh, there is!

Nobody gave Ricky Hatton a chance. They did, because I remember going into the bookies before that weekend. Because on that same day, it was the Epsom Derby, and I love horse racing. And I did a wind-dubill motivator who won the Derby. I thought great, and Costa-Zoo. And of course the double didn't come up. I thought Costa Zhu was going to beat Ricky Hatton. But Ricky Hatton was priced at around 6 to 4, so 1 1 1. It's a long, long way from being an outsider, Steve.

I know he was second favourite. But there is this story, this narrative that's developed over the years that he was given absolutely no chance. That's not true. Well, isn't that part of a sort of classic Ricky Hatton story? He's fighting at home against Costa Zoo. Frank Warren doing one of the finest pieces of matchmaking of his 40-plus year career absolutely timing it right the fight being held where you can take your bit because i've done

enough radio today and to bbc radio and tv and i've heard about five different times trust me i was there it wasn't four a m and it was somewhere in the middle of those two and it didn't finish at six a m and it didn't finish at two a m it was somewhere in the middle of those two but i did wait till we get to how many brits got to vegas steve for the five may well listen well i tell i tell how many brits got to Vegas you know i said the venue was capacity 21 000 well I tell you how many bits got to Vegas, all 35,000 that were in the MEN that night because I haven't met a person yet,

I haven't met a person yet who's a Ricky Hatton fan who wasn't A in Vegas and B wasn't at the MEN that night. And I'm sorry, but I've spoken to more than 21,000 people. Mike, but that fight itself was quite unbelievable. And soon after that, we have a pit stop with Carlos Mouser, which was a really hard fight in Sheffield. We have a pit stop and then we go on the road. And, well, then we're just,

we just, well, I'm not quite sure. I describe what happens once we go on the road because it is quite incredible and you were absolutely at the centre of that. Yeah, and they were great, great memories. And if I never have memories that supersede that, Steve, then I'm still a very, very lucky commentator.

And I would just refer very briefly, Steve, back to Costa Ju before we let it go because I've heard you on various BBC outlets today and of course you've been asked where Wiki Hatten stands. in the pantheon of British fighters. And it's difficult to place him, you know, right towards the top. You've got Lennox Lewis, you've got Joe Kowazaki.

But what I would say, Steve, is that single performance against Kostasu is as good as any British performance that I know, maybe alongside Randy Turping against Ray Robinson in 51, but maybe was that the real Ray Robinson? There have been arguments about that. But really, really special. And that led us all on, Steve, of course, to those. those glory days in Las Vegas.

And even there, Steve, you know, there's this kind of narrative that he took off in Las Vegas immediately, whereas the first bite there against Juan Urango was in the ballroom in the Paris Hotel. And it gradually, though, grew from there. I remember that the local paper, Las Vegas Review Journal, had a leader comment page. And they did just a sidebar column about Ricky Hatton and said, basically they were going to call on security at the airport to refuse to let him to go home because it created such a brilliant atmosphere during fight week. And I remember against Durango, Steve, he walked across the press conference dice behind

Yurango and just tapped him on the shoulder and shook his hands. And that seemed to disarm Urangir who was ready to argue and to shout and to be abused. And yet suddenly he was completely disarmed by this bloke laughing and ready to shake his hands. Well, if you remember rightly, Ricky was on a different planet once he landed in Las Vegas. As he said, he used an expression popcorn. He said he was wandering up and down the strip and suddenly he saw his lights

and he was up in giant lights and a 150 foot high picture of Ricky Hatton flashing on various, outside various casinos and on cab doors. And he just couldn't quite believe it. But he was also ill for that fight. Billy Graham was really concerned about that fight. He was ill.

And he worked at the Urango, okay, who's probably, you know, a footnote in like World to Weight World Championship history was tough and strong and really solid. And he gave Ricky a hard night that night. But what that did, Mike, in my opinion, is it set the flavour for what came up that year and the following year with regards to the travelling hordes. Because there were only a few thousand there that night. They were loyal and they were noisy and they wore their funky shirts. Don't get me wrong. But that's set in motion because I've always got this theory. If you've got 5,000 people, they each tell five people.

Suddenly you've got 25,000 people who each tell other people, and you've got hundreds of thousands of people knowing about it. And in some ways, that's what happened with Ricky. It became a, or he became a must-see fighter in Las Vegas. And you and I know, we've spoke to people that genuinely did, sell their grandmothers to get to get there. They did, they did, they pulled stunts like that. They hadn't told their wife the truth. They hadn't told their partners the truth. They'd made out they were going on a girl's be no. There were all sorts of stories. Do you remember that time when

we interviewed people in the line? I think it was before the Castillo fight to try and ask them. And I talked about this story on Five Live earlier today. We were in, there was, there was a line outside going into the fight. And we were on the phone where I think, oh, I was doing a piece and maybe you were kipping or whatever it worked. And I remember talking to the presenter and whoever it was and I want to say Mark Chapman because it sounds like Chapman, but it could have been Pugas. Basically, it was five live royalty on the phone to me and I made this challenge to them that I could walk out to the line and I'll find you a cross section of people. I won't just get six lads wearing Man City shirts all queuing up at the MGM in Las Vegas to get into the way in for,

I think it's for the Castillo fight, which was in the summer. And I remember, I went out and I found couples. I found groups of men, groups of women, mixed groups, lads on their own two lads. Everyone I spoke to had a Ricky Hatton story. And not a ridiculously convoluted story. They were all really basic. They'd even met him in a pub. They'd met him on the train. They'd met him on a tram. They'd met him in a restaurant. They'd met him on an airplane because he used to go to Tenerife a lot even then. Everybody had met him. Everybody had a personal experience with Ricky Hatton, Mike. Yeah, and you talked there about talking to people in the queue for the Colazo fight, Steve,

and then everything had multiplied in terms of the acclaim, the numbers. Yes. By the time we got to Vegas in December, by the way, so close to Christmas, and yet so many, you know, we do know it was tens of thousands of Brits made their way over there. And I remember a very specific instance, Steve, at midnight on the Thursday night. Now, Las Vegas, of course, is eight hours behind the UK. So I was going along at midnight to the converted ballroom, which is between the casino and the arena, the MGM Grand Garden Arena where the fight took place, to do a preview of the way in into the five live breakfast program. So it was midnight in Las Vegas.

It was 8 a.m. in the UK. and as I walked towards the ballroom, just outside there, close to the escalators leading down to the Grand Garden Arena, the queue for the way in was already beginning to form. That was midnight. The way in was at 2.30pm. So 14 and a half hours before the way in, they were already queuing and still drinking, by the way. And still drinking. I mean, if you've heard stories about the first.

Ricky Hatton fans drinking the bar dry, drinking the bars, plural dry, inside the MGM. They're not stories. They were told to Mike and I by Gene Kilroy, who was an executive host, the king of executive hosts. Muhammad Ali's business manager and anyone who listens to the pod

and has listened to it for six or seven years will know Gene Kilroy. He confirmed that the Betty Boop, dry. The bar by the Starbucks with a big twist, dry. The bars were dry with the Ricky Hatton fans. And as Mike was saying there, Mike would go down and maybe he'd do the midnight. I might have to go down at 2 o'clock and do something at 10 o'clock.

And as soon as the lift opened when you came out of the MGM, you could hear them singing, there's only one Ricky Hatton. It was like it was on a play loop, along with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra and all of the other singers from the 50s and 60s that keep those casinos going musically. There was this endless chorus and chant of devotion about there's only one Ricky Hatton and living in a hat and Wonderland.

I mean, it's not exaggerated. You weren't there. We're not hyping this. This is all factual. Mike, we haven't got all night to do this. I do want to talk about the big couple of fights in Las Vegas, the ones he lost and the different emotions that you and I shared in the build-up to those two fights during the fight and post-fight. Let's deal first with the Mayweather fight.

Yeah, this was a time when Mayweather was really growing into the World to Weight Division. I remember speaking to Billy Graham at the London Press conference. which had been way back in August. And one of the reasons the fight became so big was because they had such a huge amount of build-up time. I remember talking to Richard Schaefer, who was working with Oscar de La Jolla's Golden Boy Promotions at the time, and he said to us in London,

by the time we get to fight night in Las Vegas, there won't be a soul breathing in the United States who doesn't know this fight's happening. They might not buy it, but they'll know it's happening. And it was a fantastic media push circus all the way through to the fight. But I remember talking to Billy Graham at the press conference and he said they'd been flying on private jets

and he said to me, Floyd Mayweather is so small. He's just so small. Small hands, tiny hands. I said he'd been a welterweight for a couple of years and in the previous fight had gone up to light middle at the time to fight Oscar de La Jolla. So he was accomplished, acclimatized to that heavier weight division.

And it was my view. you in the buildup that Floyd Mayweather was the favourite. And it was one of those weeks actually Steve where it was difficult to hold on to your conviction because you talk to so many good judges in the media centre, great ex-champions, great trainers from all sorts of eras. And once they say something, it plants a seed in your mind and you start thinking over all the different scenarios in the fight. But I felt that Mayweather would be too defensively clever. And look, so it proved. it was, I think, for Ricky Hatton, one of his standout moments in his career.

Yes, it didn't work for him, but to have built an event of that scale is something that he could have been just really, really proud of. And don't forget, Steve, the next morning when you were key to dragging him out of bed to get to the sports personality over the year. I've no idea I got him out of bed 12 hours after that fight and we did sports personality

by the side of the ring inside the MEN and managed to have Peter talk at the pool to not realise it. And I sat next to Ricky and Jennifer, his partner at a time, never took. And I remember, Jennifer never took

her hand off his shoulder once during that entire two-hour broadcast. He came third, if you remember rightly. Joe Kelsaki won. And she just sat there with her hand on Ricky's shoulder and he was battered and he was bruised and there was blood seeping out

from a couple of stitched up cuts. Well, that was some night, Mike. I noticed the Mani Pachial fight, Mike, but I do want to, we might come to that at the end if we've got time, but I do want to talk, and it's only right, and Ricky would have us talk about it.

All of the work he did, all of the tireless confessions he made with regards to, A, he's addictions, drinking and recreational drugs, let's not hide behind them, let's not sugarcoat it. And also his mental health issues. And he set the agenda really for sportsmen, certainly in Great Britain,

for opening up and being able to say, yes, I do have a problem. Yes, there is something wrong. It's okay to not say you're okay, basically. He didn't coin that phrase, but he could have. In fact, he might have coined it. And I think for that, Mike, he deserves as much of a mention as he did for his endeavors and successes and glory inside the ring. And how he used all those endeavors and glory, Steve,

for such a powerful purpose. How powerful was it coming from a boxer and not just any boxer, but one who was so successful, and also one who was known for laughter, for joking, for pranks, and was known to be Mr. Fun Time, who never had any issues outside the ring.

And then suddenly, here was a man who'd managed to hide so much of what was going on in his mind. To talk so openly for so long about it, Steve, was so important to so many people. I wonder how many people out there, you know, have had Ricky Hatton to thank for going to get even the first semblance of help. Thousands, thousands and thousands and thousands. And I know that because when I've been with him at some of his gigs,

is when one of my job, big job at Satanta, went belly up, he reached out to me and gave me a couple of gigs of him just to keep me ticking over for cash. I'll never forget that. And I remember literally people come up and just pay testimony to him. So thanks very much, Rick. I was really in trouble, but what you've said was really inspired me. Thanks for it.

I mean, it's an endless stream of people. More people, I swear to you, more people come up and say to him, thanks, Ricky, what you've done for mental health and raising awareness of depression and people with suicidal tendencies. What you've done for that? More people thanked him for that, Mike, than they did for them spending every penny in their last penny

and getting out to Las Vegas all of those times. I mean, you know sometimes, some people went to nine of his fights in Las Vegas. Exactly. Yeah, I went to all nine fights in Las Vegas. Yeah, forget the fact that there actually wasn't nine. Yeah, don't worry about that, no polo. It was at Wembley when he beat Costa Zoo outdoors, 90,000.

It doesn't matter. As long as people have and had a Ricky Hatton story. Mike, I'm going to ask you for a couple of very good and very bad Ricky Hatton memories or stories. And you can choose the order. Well, after he was beaten by Floyd Mayweather, Steve, in what was a memorable week, but yes, he was beaten and had to regroup. He came back to Manchester and beat Juan Las Cano outdoors at Manchester City Stadium. And then went back, now under the guidance of four.

Floyd Mayweather Senior and beat Pauli Malinagi in Las Vegas in what I think was one of the performances of his career. So he managed to come back from the adversity. Then of course he was beaten by Mani Pachia. But that week and that performance against Pauli Malinagi, I think said a lot about Ricky Hatton and his ability to come back. I'd also say, Steve, that we, you know, we shouldn't overlook here on a boxing podcast, a boxing program shouldn't overlook how talented he was. Yes, he was known as aggressive. He was known as busy. He was known as having a great workload. But at the same time, he had tremendous skill. During COVID, when we went across a load of great fights with great fighters like Sugar Ray Leonard and others, we went across and retraced

minute by minute the fight against Costa Zoo with Ricky himself. We all watched it back on a YouTube recording. And Steve, there's one point, there's many points during the fight, But one point that I made to him was about the gamble he took in moving to his left, Ricky's left, outside Costa Zuz's right hand. Maybe one of the most dangerous punches in the history of the light world to eight division. But he was moving outside the right hand. That's so dangerous, Steve. So it's such a gamble.

Because you've got to cross it. And his boxing ability, he always said, you know, people would realize later on just what boxing ability he had. And he showed it that night against Costas. again against Pauli Malinaggi. And then Steve, you know, at the end, when he came back, like many, I wasn't Sakeem, but I was there commentating. And when I say came back, I mean the real fight,

not the exhibition against Berera, but the comeback in 2012 against the Ukrainian, Vyatislav Sanchenko, when he was stopped so ironically, Steve, by the kind of body shot that he'd caused so much. That he used to stop people with. And I remember commentating, Steve, 4-5 live, live that night and he sat on his stool after he'd gone back to the corner the verdict had been

announced and I remember saying in the corner that Ricky Hatton will now be facing the hardest fight of his life, the fight with life after boxing and so it proved and I know as you've said Steve we're talking at this stage we don't know the cause of death but what we do know is that he's had some troubled times since, you know, the last time he's at foot in a boxing ring. Yeah, we do know that indeed. And in fact, Mike, it was fitting today that I got the news sitting next to Josh Taylor, who's been fighting his own demons in a couple of months since he had his last fight, which was a loss, and then had to retire because of health.

He's been fighting his demons. And he said to me, as we made our way to the airport, he said, you know what, Steve? It's been a great thing, this thing today with Ricky. I'm going to find some positives from it. It's really made me rethink. And then he got a phone call from his father telling him the same thing. So you know what? We're talking about who he may have helped.

He may have really helped Josh Taylor today. Mike, listen, it's been a pleasure and a delight. Well, I guess it hasn't really because it seems that we have a time we talk is because someone's died, which would be ridiculous. Maybe we'll have to get together for a meal one day when someone isn't dead. So there is one bloke who'd want us to laugh, Steve. Absolutely. You celebrate Rick Hatton.

You celebrate for what he did in the ring, and you put him, give him some real respect, because as Mike said, he was a much better fight that he maybe gets credit for. You celebrate for all of his work outside the ring and his honest, his brutal honesty, in facing his demons, the blackness, the darkness in his usual style with wit and determination and true grit. And then, to be perfectly honest, if you're got to talk about the fun stuff. You've got to talk about the man that went on those mad kebab benders, the man that ended up getting locked out of the house and he had no idea where he was

and he was wearing a woman's dressing gown and a woman's slippers and he had no idea where he was he knew he had a six pack of beer at four o'clock in the morning he had nowhere to go and he didn't have his mobile. That man, the kid that came to the ring in the fat suit. I'm not going to end this show on tears. Well, maybe I have.

Mike, listen, it's been a pleasure and a delight talking to you and thanks everybody for listening. Ricky Hatton. As he said, I might not be the day. the best British fighter ever, but I think I'm the most popular British fighter ever. And I tell you what, I think he's also the most popular British fighter ever. I've been Steve Bunce, he's been Mike Costello, and this has been a very special Five Live. The Women's Football Weekly has found a new home.

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