Ricky Hatton packs a punch, but he packs some killer punchlines too. The man aiming to cement his place as arguably Britain’s best ever boxer is becoming known for his after-dinner speeches, an hour of hilarious stand-up delivered with no notes and no frills.

It is a talent that gave him a clear points win in the prefight war of words with Floyd Mayweather. Nose-to-nose in front of a mass of American television cameras, a deadpan Hatton, chewing gum nonchalantly, asked: “You’re not going to kiss me are you, Floyd?” His next gag needed a prop, a pair of oversized headphones blocking out the sound of Mayweather’s abuse.

Hatton kept up the offensive on his bemused opponent when he got back to Britain. “I’ve missed my six-year-old for a week but not as much as you’d think, because I’ve had the fortune to spend the full week with another six-year-old,” he said.

But it is during his stand-up that Hatton gets in full flow, even happy to send up his own family - “If my dad was on stage now, the first thing that would go through your minds is how has this man produced a world champion. He’s about 5ft tall, the only man I know with a full-length photo for his passport. It looks like he fell off a keyring. Honest, he could hang-glide off a Dorito. God knows I love him, but I don’t like midgets. I had a girlfriend leave me for a midget once; I never thought anyone could stoop that low.”

Even his mother isn’t spared: “I love her more than anyone, but the best way I could describe her is . . . a f***ing monster. She’s frightening, scary. Her Rice Krispies don’t go ‘snap, crackle, pop’, they go ‘Ssssh, she’s f***ing coming’.”

A lifelong Manchester City fan, Hatton never wastes the chance to have a go at Manchester United, and one player in particular: “If there’s one thing I hate more than United, it’s Cristiano Ronaldo. He’s on his arse more than his feet. I was flicking through the television channels the other day and United were playing, so I thought, ‘I’m not watching this, I’ll Hoover up instead’.

“So I got the Hoover out, went round the settee, round the coffee table, round the fireplace, and as I was going round the telly I accidentally caught it with the Hoover, and Ronaldo fell over in the box! He’s falling over so fast he’ll be fighting Audley Harrison next.”

But it is perhaps the subject of his own weight that provides most of Hatton’s material. Until recently his prefight breakfast was coming from a greasy spoon cafe, his “butty box” containing four sausages, three rashers of bacon, two pieces of Spam, three fried eggs, black pudding, hash browns, baked beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, toast and coffee. “They have nicknamed me Ricky Fatton,” he says. “Mind you, I’ve had a lot on my plate recently. The suit I’ve got on now, I got measured for it the other week. He measured my pants, measured my jacket, measured me from top to bottom. ‘Bloody hell, Ricky, you’re a Mark F’, he said, ‘a size up from a marquee’.”

During their many promotional meetings prior to the big fight, Mayweather discovered he has met nobody quite like Hatton, the Mancunian responding to the American’s jibes by simply pouring more self-deprecatory comments upon himself.

Mayweather may quickly realise he has never been inside the ropes with anybody like Hatton either, but win, lose or draw, you get the feeling Hatton will be joking about it all shortly afterwards.

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