Media portrayal of Hatton incident all too predictable
More hot boxing drama this week, as a video depicting former junior welterweight champion Ricky Hatton snorting cocaine was released by Manchester newspaper News of the World on Sunday.
The article was replete with testimony from Emma Dowe, the Irish National Women’s Senior boxing champion, who accompanied Hatton for the duration of the night in question in a hotel room and at a club. It goes without saying her testimony is still a 100 per cent credible in the eyes of the media.
The boxer is set to meet with the British Boxing Board of Control as well as enter rehab today. He faces having his license revoked by the BBBC, as well as losing some sway with his current promotional stable which includes some of Britain’s best up-and-coming boxing prospects.
Hatton had a spokesperson release a statement which basically assumes a regretful tone and says he is disappointed he “let everyone down.”
Only months ago undefeated retired boxer Joe Calzaghe was caught confessing he did blow to an undercover reporter. Calzaghe apologized and chalked it up to being bored and having a lot of time on his hands since retiring.
What is it with these guys?
And more than that, what is it with the media who report this stuff?
While Dowe and the rest of world lose their composure staging an intervention for Hatton, there’s surely another opinion to put out there. It’s the one you probably won’t read in news articles.
Here it is: who really cares a dang if Ricky Hatton, for all purposes a retired fighter, enjoys a bit of powder here and again when he’s getting it on London-style? Surely we must have better things to report. But it’s hardly just that. The incident, which guarantees to be high-profile in Britain, demonstrates how conservative and unswerving the media remains on personal matters like drug use.
True, the media can’t really be blamed. Before being in the business of facts, they’re in the business, which is to say, the business of reporting. And who can blame them for reporting what sells, regardless of how relevant it is?
The reality is that most of us care a lot more about a celebrity scandal like Hatton on cocaine than a celebrity cause like Hatton donating money to such and such charity.
It’s hard to say where Hatton’s at on a personal level, but all measures point to him not being in a good place.
For one, there was the recent report by Simon Wright in the Mirror that he was knocked out in a bar fight by a bodybuilder twice his size. And witnessing the way he was hit by Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather in his last few fights, it’s believable. For two, Hatton has put on a cringing amount of weight since his last bout against Pacquiao in May of 2009. He said recently he isn’t formally finished with the sport of boxing, but by the looks of it, he’s as good as called it a night.
All the same, exaggerating Hatton’s case is part and parcel of what the tabloids do. They don’t consider that everyone has made mistakes and done things they are ashamed of, including themselves, and that not everyone deserves to be publicly hanged for it. Especially given that there is such a wide discord between condemning publications and private opinion. Heck, just glimpsing at the history of English celebrity substance abuse, we all though snorting cocaine or taking ecstasy was common as dancing at the feverishly famous British nightclubs. Mysteriously though, the condemnation of the media hasn't destroyed the popularity of a dozen Brit celebs, nor will it destroy Hatton's.
In the long run, the whole fiasco will probably just end up helping Hatton’s career, as oppose to truly diminishing it anyway. Assuming he doesn’t have a life-sinking case, the incident gives him a ‘human face’ and injects the ‘savage’ boxer with humanity the sport of boxing often precludes. At least now he can be identified with the mid-twenty-something hip crowd as oppose to those slipping off the royal thrones in the British Boxing Aristocracy.
One grand irony of the case is that Hatton is known and loved in Britain for being an everyman, an approachable guy who was willing to party a bit. In other words, he was human. And humans all make mistakes. It doesn't make any sense to pillory him for it. Here's hoping he stops his habit and comes back to fight again, and prove even a man who makes mistakes isn't suddenly worthless.
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