Ricky Hatton says he is "delighted" to have been installed as odds-on to be knocked out in his sold-out 140 lb 'super fight' against Filipino Manny Pacquiao here at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday night.
"I love it. Love it," Hatton said. "The way people are talking about Manny, you'd think he should be fighting Godzilla. As good a fighter as Manny is, I think he is being judged on his performance against Oscar De La Hoya [who quit on his stool after eight rounds last December], but if I had fought Oscar, I would have knocked him out quicker. Oscar was a shell of himself, and has said he felt 'lifeless' and wanted Manny to knock him out to end it all. Manny didn't have the power to knock him out."
Hatton also intimated that cuts – and both fighters have suffered from cuts in their careers – "could play a part in the outcome of the fight", and that he has seen Pacquiao "flap" when cut.
Hatton is adamant that he has all the tools to beat, at the second attempt, the No 1 pound-for-pound boxer in the world. His only career defeat was to Floyd Mayweather Jnr, then pound-for-pound No 1, in Dec 2008.
"Under my new trainer Floyd [Mayweather Snr] we scraped the surface in the Paulie Malignaggi fight last November," Hatton said.
"The defeat to Mayweather humbled me. I thought I could go in there and just bulldoze opponents. I can't steamroll people at this level. I needed to get knocked on my backside to see that my style needed to change.
"I'm not suddenly a defensive master, but I'm more polished. If I fight Manny the way I fought Floyd Mayweather, he'll beat me. I made it easy for Floyd. It won't be easy for Manny. I feel it in my bones that this one is mine."
Source: telegraph.co.uk
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