Billy Graham: I'm more ghetto then Floyd Mayweather

Never one to shy away from the awkward questions, Billy Graham has spoken to BBN about his frustrations with the media's coverage about his charge Ricky Hatton and his annoyance at those not in the know spouting off on matters various. 'The Preacher' also gives Floyd Mayweather a reality check about coming from 'the streets'. Firstly, I spoke to Billy about the negative press surrounding the announcement of Ricky Hatton's next fight, the opponent was yet to be named as was the venue, title and other details (Urango in Atlanta for the IBF light-welterweight title at this time of writing). I asked Billy if he had been listening to the criticism heading Hatton's way. “To be honest with you I haven't really listened to the press since Boston (the Luis Collazo fight) because I get a bit pissed off. I mean, it is never good enough. Ricky beat a legend in Kostya Tszyu, stopped him in fact, then he knocked out, and knocked out clean, Maussa who is really awkward and had just knocked out Vivian Harris and then Ricky moved up to welterweight and fought a really underrated southpaw and a great waiting to happen in Luis Collazo and he still gets negative vibes! If people knock the (proposed) Urango fight then I don't know how they can do that.” “What can the kid (Hatton) do? He is going back down to his natural weight and fighting for his old title so what is the problem? The kid (Urango) is unbeaten and I don't know what Ricky has got to do to please people, he has had forty-one fights and one bad performance, in the Vilches fight, if you can even call it a bad performance. I wouldn't say he has even had many below par performances, there are only a few times he hasn't looked scintillating. He is fantastic for the sport and a gentleman yet he still gets knocked, if you are going to knock Ricky Hatton you are going to knock anybody, so I think “f*** it!” and get on with what we do best, and that is winning.” I put it to Billy that a lot of the chat in boxing is that since Ricky left Frank Warren Hatton's career has lacked direction. “Ha! Well that is just absolute nonsense. Look, the reason we left Frank Warren is because we can get vastly more money now for his (Ricky's) fights, pure and simple. We get paid a lot more money than we ever got off Frank Warren so what would you do? Or anyone in a career? What would Frank do? We want the even (marquee) fights because they generate the most money so we are not trying to avoid anyone.” It is also said that Frank could have secured Ricky bigger fights than the ones he has had so far, how realistic it is to say that he would have got him Floyd Mayweather or a name of that ilk no one can say for sure. Did Billy think that Warren would have delivered a big fight after taking so long to make Hatton-Tszyu? “I'm not going to knock Ricky's build-up, I'm not. We got Tszyu when we wanted Tszyu so I'm not going to knock the build-up; it is not easy to make fights. It is surprisingly difficult to make fights, even ones you think are easy to make. Everyone wants a lot of money and it is not as easy as people think. We want the best fighters out there.” “If people are to judge Ricky fairly they will have to judge him correctly and hopefully say that he is one of the best fighters ever to come out of this country, if not the best. When his career is over I think he'll be judged the best fighter to come out of this country. There are a lot of people who make an awful lot of noise, a lot of (casual) fans who say a lot of tough stuff but half the time they don't know what they are talking about so how can I get worried about that? I get annoyed on Ricky's behalf to be honest with you but there are always a load of armchair critics who talk a load of b******* so let them carry on talking it and we'll prove them wrong (as we did when Ricky beat Kostya).” Despite the hammering Joe Calzaghe gave out to Jeff Lacy the best recent British performance was Hatton beating Tszyu. Kostya is an infinitely better fighter than Lacy and Hatton beat Kostya when Tszyu was coming off a good series of wins. Unfortunately the fight itself seems to have been revised and the triumph downplayed. “The British press do tend to build people up and then try to pull them to pieces. All these top fighters, including Floyd Mayweather, have had lacklustre performances or been knocked out and stopped but they don't get knocked, they get accepted. There is never a knock against Arturo Gatti and rightly so, I admire the man and his fights, but he has lost plenty of fights. De La Hoya has been knocked out but they don't seem to care as much (in the US). If you are very talented you accept the fact that you will get judged harshly and scrutinised so you have to accept that but sometimes it does p*** me off.” In regards to the Mayweather fight it's difficult to see what more Hatton can do, he set himself up as number one in the light-welterweight division only to see Floyd jump up in weight. Ricky then followed Floyd up to welterweight only to see Floyd throw out a challenge too the durable but limited Baldomir. Now Floyd intends doing a jumping act again to face the, in my opinion, faded Oscar De La Hoya. Ricky and Floyd should be fighting one another whilst they are both young and highly-touted; Floyd is jumping about the weights cherry-picking fights. He is taking a short cut to greatness but Billy still believes the fight with Floyd will come. “It is going to happen, they are on a collision course but we want it now. What is the point of waiting?” Floyd himself is a very fine fighter yet he is not a scary Tyson type, if someone put forward the idea that Ricky was scared of Floyd what would the answer be? “Ricky scared of Floyd? Let me tell you something. One, there isn't a fighter Ricky Hatton is scared off. Two, fear doesn't come into it when you put a pair of guys like that together. Fear? We are scared of it not happening but Floyd is the real thing and will want the fight itself so he has talked about it happening. Floyd is a good fighter, a classic fighter but he is not a scary fighter.” He is very much into projecting a bad-boy ghetto personal though with the bling, furs and hip-hop image. “Ghetto? Let me tell you something. I'm from the ghetto, you're from the ghetto. Do you think Floyd could walk about Manchester with a big fur coat and dripping with jewellery? He'd be stripped of the jewellery in five minutes flat!” “It is a possibility that Floyd will jump to light-middleweight I just hope he doesn't make any kind of mistake because the styles (between Ricky and Floyd) will gel perfectly it will be like Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran and the kind of fight the boxing public likes to see and wants to see.” I asked Billy what he thinks about the odd person on the internet, and the Boxrec forums, saying pretty tasteless things about him and Ricky on a personal level, would he advise the proper internet fans to ignore such ravings and also have patience in terms of the big fight? “I'd say not only to take these rumours with a pinch of salt but also that the people spreading them are a bunch of fucking idiots.”