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Richard John Hatton (born 6 October 1978) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1997 to 2012 and has worked as a boxing promoter and trainer ever since. During his boxing career, he held multiple world championships at light welterweight and one at welterweight.
BoxRec ranks Hatton as the 11th greatest European boxer of all time and the fifth greatest British boxer of all time, pound for pound.
In 2005 he was named Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine, the Boxing Writers Association of America, and ESPN.
In 2000, Hatton won the British light-welterweight title, followed by the World Boxing Union (WBU) title the following year; He made a record fifteen successful defenses of the latter from 2001 to 2004. He reached the peak of his career in 2005 by defeating Kostya Tszyu for the International Boxing Federation (IBF), Ring and lineal titles. This was followed later that year with a win over Carlos Maussa to claim the World Boxing Association (WBA) (Super version) title, thus becoming a unified world light-welterweight champion.
Making his welterweight debut in 2006, Hatton won a tough fight against WBA champion Luis Collazo to win a world title in his second weight class. A return to light welterweight in 2007 saw him win the vacant IBF title for the second time, as well as the International Boxing Organization (IBO) title. In the same year, Hatton suffered his first career loss against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a bid to win the World Boxing Council (WBC), Ring, and lineal welterweight titles. This loss severely affected Hatton's well-being, as did a second loss in 2009 when he lost his IBO, Ring, and lineal light-welterweight titles to Manny Pacquiao.
After Hatton's career went on a long hiatus, rumors of a return continued to circulate in the media for the next several years.
In 2011, Hatton announced his retirement from the sport, but in 2012, more than three years after his last fight, he confirmed his return.
A loss to Vyacheslav Senchenko in his first match prompted Hatton to immediately announce his retirement.
Hatton has been lauded as one of the most beloved and popular British boxers of all time, with a raucous fan base who traveled in the tens of thousands across the Atlantic to support him.