By Mark Vester
Junior welterweight Ricky Hatton is so confident of beating Manny Pacquiao on May 2 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, he is telling anyone who wants to make a lot of money to empty out their bank account, re-mortgage their home - and bet everything on him. Hatton is the betting underdog.
"Re-mortgage the house and empty the bank and put it all on me. I'm not getting ahead of myself. It's just the build of my opponent and how I feel. That's what I'm going on. Every day of the week I can beat this guy," Hatton told The Guardian .
"I'm so, so confident it's unreal. People are getting carried away with Pacquiao's speed, but don't forget I'm a bit of a whippet myself. It has all gone really smoothly for this fight and this is the sharpest I've been."
Hatton seems to be very focused on knocking Pacquiao out. He studied some of Pacquiao's fights over the years and believes the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world will not be able to withstand the incoming punches to the chin and the body.
"Pacquiao has been stopped a couple of times by body shots and has been knocked out and I don't think there's anything you can do to improve your ribs or chin," said Hatton. "You can't count the De La Hoya fight, Oscar was weight-drained – he left it all on the scales when he fought Manny."
"I don't think he's fought an idiot like me before who is 100 miles per hour, strong, fast and a real handful. I will be the biggest and strongest guy he has faced and with how I'm boxing more sensibly now I really think it's going to be enough."
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