Boxing: Boxing's preacher prepares to leave pulpit

Billy "The Preacher" Graham walked at Ricky Hatton's side for 12 years and 45 fights but he will walk away from the sport of boxing on Friday night after 40 years as a fighter and a trainer.

Graham, 53, will climb the ring steps for the last time when he works the corner for the first time for Watford's Ojay Abrahams in what will be a bittersweet end-game for the trainer. Abrahams will be having his 100th and final fight and will be trying to avoid losing for the 76th time.

"Ojay has been a friend for a long, long time and I think he was fighting before I was training fighters," Graham said. "He asked me to help him in the corner for his last fight and I started to think about it and I decided that I'd had enough. It will be the end for both of us."

There has been speculation about Graham's working relationship with Hatton since the dreadful hours following the boxer's loss to Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas last December. However, they worked together one last time in May when over 55,000 people watched Hatton win for the 44th time in 45 fights, beating Juan Lazcano at the City of Manchester Stadium.

Graham and Hatton shared a cold embrace at the fight's conclusion, which stunned me, and took separate paths in the fight's spectacular fallout, when many thought that the boxer was slipping. Graham kept a dignified silence and remained in the background when Hatton's next fight against Paulie Malignaggi was announced for 22 November back in Las Vegas.

The fighter and the trainer met last weekend and according to Ray Hatton, who manages his son's affairs, Graham told the boxer that he was walking away. It was, I can imagine, an emotional meeting and one that Graham has vowed not to talk about in detail.

"I will never have anything bad to say about Ricky Hatton," said Graham. "I love him and I always will. We achieved what we set out to do and now it's over. That's all I will say."

The pair started to work together even before Hatton turned professional in 1997 and it was obvious from the very start that their relationship was special and went far beyond the usual boxer and trainer deal. The pair shared a love of a light ale and a desire for boxing success that was at times bordering on insane.

Graham made an enemy of Hatton's first promoter, Frank Warren, and inside Hatton's inner circle in the last three years Graham has increasingly been ostracised but always remained close to the boxer. It is strange how some of the bravest men in the ring and the boldest men in the promotional business can be petty and often pathetic. "I'm too busy to listen to that bollocks," Graham would invariably reply when asked about something unpleasant.

There will no doubt be glowing tributes to Graham but it needs to be pointed out that he was and remains a maverick both in his methods and private life. Graham really did do it his own way and that cost him friends and fighters and led ultimately to his position as an outsider surrounded in isolation by his beloved reptiles.

As a boxer he fought 14 times on the club circuit in the north of England between 1974 and 1976 and lost just twice but he had a weakness for women and invariably would pick something in a mini skirt over something wearing a gumshield to train with.

As a pro he knew Phil Martin, a boxer and gentleman, who was good enough to fight for the British light-heavyweight title. Graham fell under the radar when he stopped fighting and was living dangerously on the streets of Salford when he heard that his old friend Martin had a gym.

In many ways "The Preacher" found salvation when he climbed the dark steps that led many from the streets to Martin's four-cornered sanctuary. Martin's now legendary Champs Camp gym in Moss Side was about inspiration and hope in the late Eighties and Graham embraced a second chance at the fight game.

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