(Image: Manchester Evening News)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/button><\/div>\n
At the business end of proceedings, Leigh\u2019s very own Lottery Winners came out in support too, phone lighters aloft, while Tinie Tempah brought even more star power.<\/p>\n
Al Foran brought the laughs and lightened things with his spot-on impressions of Pep, Fergie, Keane, Beckham and Rooney amongst others. There was even a cheeky nod to Tyson Fury, Chris Eubank and Mike Tyson too.<\/p>\n
Relieving unforgettable nights there were also plenty of anecdotes from those who were with Ricky when he took over Vegas with his 30,000 fans. Paulie Malignaggi, was at first his bitter rival but then became a close friend. He flew in to relive that amazing night, delighting the crowd with his tales.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a larger than life cult figure in Manchester and the UK but when you met him in person he was so down to earth. He was very ferocious in the ring. I remember the physicality more than anything. He really loved this city, he would be amazed at this turn out tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a nod to Ricky Hatton\u2019s infectious sense of humour the night wasn\u2019t complete without a rendition of Hi Ho Ricky from Joey Blower. Ring side Ricky\u2019s son Campbell and granddaughter Lyla charmed the crowd with twirls, cartwheels and handstands in what made for a heartwarming penultimate act.<\/p>\n
For the twelfth round it was down to Crumpsall-raised rapper and actor Bugzy Malone. In his first gig at the AO since his 2021 Resurrection Tour, he appeared on stage determined to give the crowd a set to remember, even performing a brand new song especially for Ricky.<\/p>\n
He told the M.E.N earlier this week that Ricky was a huge inspiration for him in a city that has some really cloudy days. Describing Ricky as a beacon of hope, Bugzy\u2019s said of his new song that the beat \u2018almost pulled his heart out of his chest\u2019.<\/p>\n
To close, and to bring the curtains down on an epic tribute, there was only one song it could be – Blue Moon. The night\u2019s stars, sports champions and music legends really did give the Hitman Hatton the send off he well and truly deserved. And as Bugzy told an emotional Campbell, \u201cyour dad was the original King of the North\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An all-star lineup of musicians, comedians, boxers and tv presenters descended on the AO Arena 23:22, 07 Jun 2026Updated 06:23, 08 Jun 2026 Ricky Hatton’s son, Campbell, and granddaughter, Lyla, at An Evening4Ricky event in AO Arena(Image: Manchester Evening News) How do you say goodbye to a legend? For Mancunian boxing icon Ricky Hatton, you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2449550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[481042,361847,481041,446532,376094],"class_list":["post-2449549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-ao-arena","tag-boxing","tag-hyde-and-longdendale","tag-manchester-city-centre","tag-ricky-hatton"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ricky-Hatton-given-send-off-fit-for-a-king-as.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2449549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2449551,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449549\/revisions\/2449551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2449550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2449549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2449549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2449549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}