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Sports / Other Sports
Hatton hopes Mayweather sticks to dancing
(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-20 14:04
NEW YORK - Ricky Hatton tries to ignore the taunts of World Boxing
Council welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather, hoping to make a knockout
statement in the ring at their December 8 title clash in Las Vegas.
Boxers Floyd Mayweather (L) and Ricky Hatton (R) square off in New York
September 19, 2007. Mayweather, from Michigan, and Hatton, from
Manchester, England, will fight on December 8, 2007 in Las Vegas for the
Welterweight championship.? [Reuters]
Mayweather, a six-time champion in five different weight classes,
ridiculed the Briton this week by calling him "Vicky Fatton" on the first
stop of their promotional tour.
"I think he's lacking class," Hatton told reporters on Wednesday.
"Spending an afternoon with Floyd at a press conference doesn't make me
feel like writing a book and saying good things about him.
"He'll never have the love of the fans the way he carries on."
Image is important to Hatton, who dominated as a junior welterweight
before stepping up in class for the biggest match-up of undefeated
welterweights since Oscar de la Hoya and Felix Trinidad clashed in 1999.
SLICK FIGHTER
Mayweather, a slick fighter hailed as the world's best pound-for-pound
boxer, has a 38-0 record. The hard-hitting Hatton is 43-0.
"I'm just a regular guy who likes to do what any 28-year-old would do,"
the Englishman said. "I play darts with my local pub team. I go and have
a pint with my mates. I'm very close with my family and with my old mates.
"Guinness is my drink. Maybe that's why he named me Vicky Fatton," he
said, patting his tummy.
Hatton, looking reasonably fit in a pin-striped suit, said he aimed to
knock out Mayweather.
"Some fighters are just happy to get the win," he said in a sneering
reference to Mayweather's defensive tactics. "It's never my intention to
just get the win.
"I like to think that when I retire, when you put on fight videos from
your home library of the exciting fights, mine will be up there before
Floyd's. That's important to me, very important to me. That's why I've
got the following I've got.
"That's why fans like me, because they can relate to me."
Hatton resisted efforts by Mayweather to goad him into action in front of
the cameras at Rockefeller Plaza but took his own verbal swipe at the
champion, who is a contestant on the "Dancing with the Stars" TV show.
"It wouldn't be the sort of thing I'd do," Hatton told reporters. "But
the longer he stays in it, the better for me, so vote for Floyd.
"Actually it could be good training for the amount of back-peddling he'll
have to do."
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