It is 9 in the evening, Las Vegas. We are in Ricky Hatton’s rented accommodation about half an hour’s drive from The Strip. The usual Hatton regalia is in the living-room: pool table, big-screen television, his brother and housemate Matthew — and a well of confidence so deep that you leave the place reassessing. Can it really be that the 29-year-old Mancunian cannot lose?

The suburbs here are free of the hype that permeates the heart and the gaming floors of this city. We hear from Floyd Mayweather Jr’s camp that their man is not only the best in the world right now, but probably the best ever. Muhammad Ali? Forget it.

Mayweather was born to inherit the boxing world, at least so the implication goes. But Hatton is still in “pinch me I’ve made it” mode. With his phone, he has sneaked photographs of his picture that you see all over the blackjack tables and sent them home to Carol, his mother. “It’s like, ‘Have you seen this, Mum?’ ” he said in disbelief.

But what Hatton does believe is that he belongs in the ring with Mayweather, the pound-for-pound world leader. Oscar De La Hoya, who is promoting this bout, pitched up to see the Englishman’s gym session on Monday and, according to Hatton, “he said that he was shell-shocked at how fast and explosive my movements are”.

De La Hoya also happens to be Mayweather’s latest stiff. He lost a split decision to the “Pretty Boy” here in May, but even that gives Hatton confidence. De La Hoya has told Hatton he was convinced that if he had kept up the tempo of what he did in his first six rounds against Mayweather, he would have had him. And tempo is Hatton’s stock-in-trade.

All of which contributes to the edifice of confidence. It is arresting to be eye to eye with a boxer , so close to his greatest challenge in the ring, especially when he knows that the majority and the odds have dovetailed with the view that Mayweather’s lavish skills will negate every drop of sweat and heart and soul that he brings. But none of this has pierced Hatton’s self-belief.

To persuade you of this, he creates an extraordinary image. “Fighters always say, ‘This is my best ever training camp,’ ” he said. “But this is. If you could crawl up inside me and have a look and see how I feel mentally — I mean it — this is the best ever.

“I’ve always had this inner belief. It would be easy to think, ‘Ooh, Floyd Mayweather, Vegas, ooh hell.’ But I’ve never, ever thought that. People say, ‘Ooh, you’re fighting Floyd Mayweather?’ I feel like saying, ‘Yeah, he’s f***ing fighting me.’ That’s my level of confidence. I just don’t express it like Floyd.

“I remember boxing in the world juniors in Cuba and the Cubans won every single weight division apart from mine. I was sat there the night before my final watching the guy I would fight. He flattened a kid in the first round and my two team-mates next to me looked at me and said, ‘Rather you than me.’ But my attitude was never like that. I’ve always had this confidence.”

And here is the real killer statement of where Hatton stands. He rewinds 2½years to the summer of 2005, to when he was facing Kostya Tszyu, the only other bout he was expected to lose, a contest that was likewise seen as as step up in class and a voyage into the unknown, and he swears that he feels more confident about taking on Mayweather than he did against Tszyu.

“I was dreading walking into that [big right hand [of Tszyu]” he said. Was Tszyu a more frightening prospect? “Without a doubt. I’d sooner take my chances against six or seven combination punches from Mayweather than that big right. Kostya Tszyu had the strength and the power, Mayweather has the speed, skill and defence. But I don’t think Floyd has the strength and knockout punch. It’s different problems.

“In terms of firepower, those right hands of Tszyu, wow, they’d stop you. But to beat Ricky Hatton you’ve got to scare me, you’ve got to give me something to make me scared of coming in. But ultimately I don’t think Floyd’s got the power to keep me off and I think I’ve got the skill to counteract.”

We return here to one of the real themes of this bout — boxer versus brawler. Hatton detests having his skills stripped down to such basics, but he does buy into the theme, too. The Mayweather camp tells us that Saturday night will be about “skill, skill, skill”, but Hatton brings something else — his huge force of personality.

One is reminded here of a line by Steve Prefontaine, one of the greatest distance runners the United States has produced: “I don’t run a race to see who is the fastest, but to see who has the most guts.” That is how Hatton sees the bout overnight on Saturday.

This, for instance, is how he describes being hit by Tszyu: “Every time he whacked me I thought, ‘Don’t let it happen, everyone’s expecting you to go [down].’ ” In other words, character and guts sustained him. “I have that same fire in my belly now,” he said.

This, then, is the bout according to Hatton: “Yes, Floyd does have the speed and skill advantage. But is that enough? He’s got that style, he shows you the shoulder, but what you do is change the angle, step to the side, that’s what I do best.

“High workrate, change of angle, move in on him quick — everything you need to beat Floyd Mayweather, I believe I’ve got.”

And he believes it. We leave his house and out into the fresh, dark night and a colleague jokes: “So he can’t lose, then.” But this is where Hatton’s mind appears to be — and it is absolutely the right place.

Top earners

Ricky Hatton will get a £10m purse for this bout but he is still lagging behind in the list of top boxers’ paydays (all figures are converted at today’s exchange rate)

£22.5m

Oscar De La Hoya for his bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr in May at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas

£17.5m

Evander Holyfield for his second contest with Mike Tyson, the notorious ear-biting bout, in 1997, also at the MGM Grand

£17m

Lennox Lewis for his win over Tyson in Memphis in 2002

£17m

Tyson for his 69sec stoppage of Bruce Seldon in 1996

£15.5m

De La Hoya for his defeat by Bernard Hopkins in 2004

£15m

Tyson for the second bout with Holyfield in 1997

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