By Mark Vester
The camp of undefeated Ricky Hatton is still planning to take the "less is more" approach when challenging WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Dec. 8 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Hatton's manager, his father Ray Hatton, told The Guardian that his son will probably weigh around 143-144 by the time of the fight, looking to preserve his speed, which is something he failed to do when he escaped defeat with a close points win against Luis Collazo in 2006.
"The plan is for Ricky to weigh in at 10st 3lb [four pounds inside the welterweight limit] against Mayweather because that's the weight he's best at," Ray says. "Collazo was a big man and we wanted to match him but we bulked up too much. Ricky came in too heavy and he lost his speed and reactions. We won't make that mistake again."
Ray is confident that his son's damaging punches to the body will be the equalizer against Mayweather. Hatton was knocking people with bodyshots long before the crippling body blow that stopped Jose Luis Castillo in June.
"Ricky has been knocking people out with body shots since he was 12 or 13," Ray said. "It helped that one of his early trainers was Paul Dunne, an ex-pro at Sale West Amateur Boxing Club, who was small and squat like Ricky. Then when he was 15 he sparred with [former European light-welterweight champion] Pat Barrett, who hit him with a body shot that absolutely wrecked him. Ricky always had a good dig to the body but after that he was even keener to master it because he appreciated how damaging it was."
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