Hitman follows in great British tradition

George Kimball America at LargeThat neither Ricky Hatton nor the world's favourite sport has exactly taken America by storm was suggested by a press release distributed two days ago by the promoters of Saturday night's megafight at the MGM Grand Garden.

Under the heading of "Ricky (the Hitman) Hatton, beloved in England, wants US fans to know more of his charismatic personality," the "Did You Know?" section included this titbit: "Ricky is friends with Paul Dalglish, who plays American football for the Houston Texans," news which would have been surprising to that NFL team.

Kenny Dalglish's son, of course, plays English football, or soccer, for the Houston Dynamo, a team which just two weeks earlier had won the MLS Cup, but the misinformation was duly reprinted in numerous newspapers and boxing websites around the country yesterday morning.

American sports fans and American sportswriters may be naïve about soccer, but when it comes to self-deception, the eternally optimistic English boxing fan is unrivalled in all of sport.

When tickets for Hatton's fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr went on sale last September, the MGM Grand Garden Arena sold out in half an hour. Of the 17,000 ducats snapped up that day, perhaps 3,000 of them were purchased by British tour operators, but locals estimate that as many as 10,000 of Hatton's countrymen are in Nevada this weekend to support the undefeated Mancunian.

As of yesterday morning, Las Vegas ticket brokers were offering single seats on the floor at $5,000 and up, and four adjacent seats could still be had for a mere $38,000.

It seems unlikely enough that Hatton's army of blue-collar supporters will subscribe at those prices, but a number of Las Vegas casinos will have the fight available on closed-circuit television at $50 a pop, which, given the $54.95 price tag for watching the pay-per-view telecast in one's living room, looks almost like a bargain.

In the meantime, the casinos will spend the next three days cheerfully separating the visitors from across the pond from their money at the gaming tables.

Depending on the always-unpredictable pay-per-view sale in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, Pretty Boy Floyd could wind up with an estimated $20 million for this weekend's exercise. Hatton's take could be as much as $15 million.

Mayweather remains slightly better than a 1 to 2 favourite at the sports books up and down the strip, and the odds would be even shorter but for the recent influx of British money through the windows.

Given the fervour of the Brits, it would be surprising if attendance at tomorrow's weigh-in at the Grand Garden doesn't top the record 7,000 who watched Mayweather and De La Hoya step on the scales in May.

We've seen all of this before, of course. When future Hall of Famer Marvellous Marvin Hagler challenged the very ordinary Alan Minter for the middleweight title back in 1980, Minter was actually the betting favourite at the London bookie shops.

Seven years later the Brits were convinced that Barney Eastwood-managed Herol (Bomber) Graham would inherit the mantle of middleweight greatness once Hagler passed on the torch. Graham was 38-0 when Hagler retired from the ring. The Bomber wound up getting four cracks at world titles, and lost them all.

Saturday night's venue has been the scene of some of these British disappointments. Half a dozen years ago the English had actually managed to persuade themselves that Prince Naseem Hamed, then 35-0, was the second coming of Sugar Ray Robinson - until he was unmasked by Marco Antonio Barrera at the MGM Grand.

An army of supporters at least the size of Hatton's accompanied Frank Bruno to America for his 1996 fight with Mike Tyson at the MGM Grand. Although Tyson had knocked Bruno out in five seven years earlier, this time Bruno was the champion and Tyson had fought just twice since being released from prison, and thousands of beefy Englishmen showed up in Vegas persuaded that their man couldn't lose.

Bruno nearly hyperventilated in his corner before the fight even started. Just before the opening bell he frantically blessed himself so many times that Frank Warren was moved to note that he looked like "the Pope on speed". This time Tyson knocked him out in three.

(The lone exception to a trend which dates back to the dawn of time would seem to be Lennox Lewis, but it should be remembered that the Brits didn't exactly embrace Lewis as one of their own. Though born in London, he was a Canadian citizen of Jamaican stock who lived in the US. When he won, he was English. When he lost, or looked bad, he was a Canadian.)

If Hatton is burdened by unrealistic expectations it is because his fans have never seen him lose. (Mayweather sneered at the Hitman's 43-0 record the other day, noting that "if he'd fought 43 Floyd Mayweathers, he'd be 0-43.) The bout will be Hatton's fourth US outing in a row (and fifth overall, including a four-rounder on a Madison Square Garden undercard 10 years ago). Last year he barely beat Luis Colazzo in Boston, with a first-round flash knockdown furnishing the margin of victory, and then went the distance with the largely untested Juan Urango. This June he knocked out Jose Luis Castillo, but Castillo was but a shell of the fighter who'd given Mayweather two hard fights years earlier.

That the bout is being contested at 147lb probably doesn't bode well for Hatton, who struggled against Colazzo in his only previous fight at that weight. (Mayweather, on the other hand, ventured up to 154 for May's fight against De La Hoya; even as a light middleweight he looked quicker than Hatton did as a welterweight.)

When somebody mentioned Hatton's "electrifying" style the other day, Pretty Boy scoffed: "If you call hitting and holding and wrestling exciting, then I guess he's an exciting fighter."

Hatton has traditionally been able to wear down his opponents with relentless pressure, but the expectation here is that he won't even be able to catch up with Pretty Boy, who won't stay in one place long enough to engage him on the inside.

Does Hatton have a chance, then? Well, yes. Mayweather has a well-documented history of chronic hand problems, and as late as last week rumours had surfaced that the American had an injured paw and might seek a postponement.

If Hatton can hang in long enough to do some damage to Mayweather's fists with his face, he might be able to make a fight of it.