Russell Crowe leaves Joe Rogan stunned with VERY graphic behind-the-scenes story from Ricky Hatton’s iconic win over Kostya Tszyu

Russell Crowe has revealed the lengths he went to in order to help his close friend Kostya Tszyu in an experience that gave the Hollywood superstar a front-row view into the brutality of boxing.

Crowe made the stunning revelation on Joe Rogan’s podcast this week as the pair discussed Tszyu’s legendary final fight against Britain’s Ricky Hatton, as well as the Aussies two boxing sons, Tim and Nikita.

Aussie sports fanatic Crowe, 60, revealed that he went to Manchester to support Tszyu in his world title defence against hometown hero Hatton, who put on one of his best ever performances to dethrone the champion due to corner retirement. 

He recalled how he had been warned not to become too friendly with boxers, given the emotional toll of watching your friends get hurt. 

Over 11 gruelling rounds, Crowe experienced that pain first-hand as Tszyu fell to defeat in what would be the final fight of his incredible career.

‘I was at the Kostya Tszyu, Ricky Hatton fight,’ Crowe started.

‘I’ve got a mate who is a lawyer, he says ‘you have to be careful befriending boxers because there will be that night when it’s all over’.

‘It was in Manchester and Hatton was jacked, man.

The Australian actor was in attendance for his friend Kostya Tszyu’s defeat by Ricky Hatton

Crowe said while Hatton was celebrating, Tszyu was ‘p***ing blood’ backstage

‘His body was chiseled in a way I’d never seen it before.

‘And from my perspective, it looked like he was laying in some shots under the belt.

‘But, you know, an audience like that in Manchester, which was all about Ricky, they were all for him, (laughs) he didn’t have a lot of dissenting voices.’

Crowe then explained how after the fight he helped his good mate Tszyu, who was in a world of pain. 

‘I was in the dressing room holding Kostya over a bucket while he p***ed blood for about 20 minutes after the fight.

‘That made me understand what the boxing world really is.’

A sympathetic Rogan said: ‘Everyone one of those, they take something away from the fighter.

‘They will never be the same.’

Crowe replied: ‘I don’t think he (Kostya) fought again after that. He had that big, long storied career, multiple world championships and all the things he achieved and, you know, he knew that was the end of that for him.’ 

Rogan described Hatton ‘in his prime, a bad man, a mauler’ and labelled Tim Tszyu’s most recent fight – a points decision defeat by Sebastian Fundora – a ‘crazy fight’.