Hatton stands his ground

Boxing:  Ricky Hatton went nose-to-nose with Floyd Mayweather at the final press conference ahead of Saturday night's huge showdown…

Boxing: Ricky Hatton went nose-to-nose with Floyd Mayweather at the final press conference ahead of Saturday night's huge showdown in Las Vegas.

Tempers almost boiled over in the final square-off, with Mayweather predictably right in Hatton's face once again, but The Hitman refused to give any ground and some barging took place before the fighters were quickly ushered off stage.

During the preliminaries, Mayweather was up and down from his seat looking less than comfortable, while on stage he left out his usual trash-talking.

Hatton was joking around as usual, poking fun at himself and comments made about him by the Mayweather camp.

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"I cant believe how close it is," said Hatton.

"This little fat beer-drinking Englishman who's fought no-one, been over protected and fought a load of has-beens is, in the betting, so close.

"Personally I think you've got nowt to worry about Floyd, I think you'll be alright."

Hatton is ultra confident about his chances though, and insisted he would be the one with the remaining 0 in his loss column come the end of the fight, even betting with a heckler from the crowd.

"One '0' has got to go, and mark my words it wont be mine, it wont be mine."

Mayweather ditched his trash talk and instead promised fight fans a night to remember, claiming he would stand and fight Hatton.

"I've faced the Hatton style before, he's gonna bring his 'A' game," said the Pretty Boy.

"Does he deserve the fight? Absolutely. And we're gonna give the fans one hell of a fight, buy the pay-per-view, its gonna be a toe-to-toe battle."

After a lengthy two-minute face-off on stage, Mayweather encroached too much into Hatton's face for the Mancuanian's liking, and he leaned back in what looked like being an early big-fight preview before it was broken up.

"It was quite amusing actually," said Hatton typically playing down the incident.

"Floyd likes to get in your face and intimidate you and do all that stuff.

"But as you can tell in my speech I'm my usually funny, witty self, but there's a time for laughing and a time for being serious, and there at the end I showed I haven't come here to mess about either.

"I've come here to take this title, if he thinks he can get on that stage, lean on me and push me about, he won't push me about on the night and he wont push me about there."

Mayweather could not resist one last dig before the end, claiming he saw nerves in Hatton.

"I'm being honest, he was a little nervous," added Mayweather.

"But all fighters when they're facing me, of course they're going to be nervous."