Inside his cosy home on the edge of Hyde, a short left hook from the house in
which he grew up on the Hattersley estate, Ricky Hatton the fighter is
playing dad. His six-year-old son, Campbell, a dead ringer for Manchester’s
beloved Hitman, has just handed him a small box in the colours of his team,
Manchester City, and a good luck card.
“What’s this? Have you got me a present?” Hatton asks gently. “Let me read
this first, son [opening the card]. What does it say? ‘To Dad, good luck,
love from Campbell’. Thanks, son. Did you write this yourself?” A camera
crew for a documentary series on the American TV network HBO,
Hatton/Mayweather 24/7, is filming the scene in the games room of the home
that the boxer calls Heartbreak Hotel, but the interaction between father
and son is still intimate.
“Did you do this drawing, son?” asks Hatton. Campbell, smiling sheepishly,
nods his head. “Is that me knocking out Floyd Mayweather?” He nods again and
answers, “Yes.” They exchange a hug and a kiss. “All these kisses you’ve put
on the card, it must have taken you six hours to write this card,” Hatton
continues, placing the card on the small coffee table in front of him,
lifting the lid off the box and slowly taking out a pint glass with a bell
on its handle and a message on its side, ‘DANGER: when the bell rings it’s
empty.’ Hatton chuckles. “That bell will get plenty of use,” he says. “Won’t
it, Campbell?” A knowing smile from the six-year-old raises a laugh from
Hatton’s girlfriend, Jennifer, his mum and dad, Carol and Ray, and the
four-man 24/7 crew.
There are a few more presents to open, including an Elvis alarm clock and a
colourful pair of underpants from Jennifer, which Hatton says he will wear
at the weigh-in before his fight with Mayweather. Soon it is time to say
goodbye to Campbell, who will stay for the next three weeks with his mum,
Claire, because his father is leaving for Las Vegas in the morning. “Do well
at your school and be good for your mum,” Hatton says as Carol walks her
grandson to the car. “See you soon, son. I’ll give you a ring when I get to
Vegas. I’ll call you as soon as I land.”
As Campbell leaves with his grandparents, the 24/7 crew decide to depart, too,
and Hatton returns to the games room, sits on a sofa alongside Jennifer and
begins to watch again the first episode in the 24/7 series, a
behind-the-scenes insight into the Hatton and Mayweather camps ahead of
their December 8 fight. Hatton’s features harden. “Come on, give me some of
that face-to-face action,” Mayweather declares in gangsta rap fashion. “You
know you’re fighting the best, right? Are you willing to die?” Hatton turns
to Jennifer. “Is he willing to die?” he says disdainfully. “He’s had 38
fights and all he’s done is run.” Mayweather may be the best pound-for-pound
boxer in the world but Hatton, The Ring magazine’s light welterweight world
champion who is stepping up 7lb to challenge the American for his world
welterweight title, is not intimidated. “You only get nervous and
intimidated when you’re fighting someone you think you can get beaten by,”
he suggests confidently.
The production cuts to footage of Mayweather. “Get up there and stop me,” he
demands. “They can’t stop me. This is America. We were built on winning and
I’m a winner. This boy is easy work. You ought to know what you facing, boy.
You facing the truth.” Hatton shrugs. “He says, ‘I’m real’ and the only
thing real about him is that he’s a real dickhead. He’s wasting his breath
with his trash talk because, to me, he’s talking like an idiot. What’s he
trying to prove? We know you’re a good fighter, Floyd, so change the record.”
Hatton believes that the unbeaten 30-year-old has plenty to prove. “Do you
have anything to say to Floyd Mayweather or about a potential fight with
Floyd Mayweather?” he is asked in the ring by HBO commentator Max Kellerman
after stopping Mexico’s Jose Luis Castillo with a left hook to the liver in
the fourth round in June. “You saw more action in these four rounds than
you’ve seen value for money in Floyd’s whole career,” he replies.
The 24/7 series, which has three more episodes to run before the fight is
broadcast on pay-per-view on both sides of the Atlantic, will be saturated
with trash talk to and fro because trash talk and the threat of vengeful
violence it conveys is good for pay-per-view sales.
A more reflective analysis of Mayweather’s strengths and weaknesses is
undertaken by Hatton when Mayweather/Hatton Part One is over. “Has he got
better boxing ability than me? Yes, I would say,” Hatton acknowledges. “Has
he got better hand speed than me? Again I would say yes. Has he got a better
defence? I would say yes. But has he got a better engine and better fitness
than me? I would say no. Has he got the heart that I have? I would say no.
If he has, we haven’t seen it yet. Power, has he got the power that I have?
Has he got the determination? Listen, sometimes in a fight it’s not the most
talented boxer who wins, just as in life the people with the most talent
don’t always win. Sometimes it’s about heart and determination and the will
to win, and the notion that Mayweather is just unbeatable, to me, is sheer
nonsense.
“Look at the two fights he’s come closest to losing [against Oscar De La Hoya
in May and against Castillo in April 2002]. De La Hoya’s a tactician, he’s
not a pressure fighter, but he put the pressure on Mayweather that night and
nearly beat him before he tired after six rounds.
“Castillo made a terrible start in their first fight but he nearly beat him. A
lot of people suggested that when I fought Castillo he was past it. Maybe he
was, maybe he wasn’t. But when Castillo was at his best, was his footwork as
good as mine or as fast? Was there as much variety to his punching? Was he
as physically strong as me? Was he as good at punching to the body as I am?
Was he as hard a hitter? To all of these questions, I would answer no. If
Floyd’s going to use the line that he fought Jose when he was in his prime,
well, I’d like to think that I’m better than Jose and I’m still in my prime.
Jose’s a good pressure fighter but he doesn’t have the workrate that I have
and he isn’t as physically strong. Yet Jose nearly beat him and I’m meant to
believe that nobody can stop him because he’s American and he’s a winner? Do
me a favour. I’m unbeaten and I’m British and when I’m in the ring at the
MGM Grand I’ll have my pride, too. I won’t be concerned by any of his s***.”
Hatton can be believed about this, certainly, but can he rise in weight from
10st to 10st 7lb and use the same methods of entrapment which have accounted
for 43 opponents, against a gifted champion whose elusiveness in the ring is
one of his most significant strengths? The 29-year-old Mancunian’s only
other contest at welterweight was an unconvincing struggle in May 2006
against New York southpaw Luis Collazo, whom the veteran Sugar Shane Mosley
unanimously outpointed nine months later. Hatton won by unanimous decision
but it was close. Mistakes were made, he insists. He weighed 11st 6lb when
he stepped in the ring, which left him sluggish. His optimum weight on fight
night is 11st and he will come in as near to the mark as he can against
Mayweather. In the gym his work in sparring and one-on-one sessions with
trainer Billy Graham has demonstrated a razor-sharp edge, the sole concern
being that he may have to hold himself back for fear of peaking too early.
His body is strong, as hard as rock and, psychologically, he is in a good
place.
“Floyd likes to see that little bit of fear in your eyes and he sets out to
intimidate you, which he tried to do with me on the media tour we did over
two months ago,” Hatton reveals. “All of the things he wanted to see, the
signs he wanted to see, he didn’t see. He wanted to see me snapping
because he has one of those . . . his style in the ring is annoying. He
never engages you. He just waits because he wants you to lunge in
carelessly. If you lose your temper in the ring with him, that plays into
his hands. He tries to do it before the fight because he wants you hating
him so much that when the bell rings you come at him like a headless chicken
and you waste punches and he can slip and slide, make you miss and take the
sting out of you before he comes on. I didn’t let him get under my skin and
I’m not scared of him. All the signs that he doesn’t want to see, he’s seen
from me, I truly believe this.” His formidable task before he returns home
to Hyde is to make Mayweather a believer also.
