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Boxing

Hatton expecting Castillo 'classic'

19/06/2007

Ricky Hatton says his upcoming fight against Mexico's Jose Luis Castillo will be a 'slugfest' between two boxers not afraid of coming forward to land punches.

The 28-year-old Manchester-born welterweight has a history of impressive performances under his belt after 42 bouts undefeated so far in his career.

And the fighter believes Saturday's contest against Castillo could match his exhilarating IBF light-weight title victory over Kostya Tszyu in 2005.

"I think this will be a similar fight to my Kostya Tszyu fight," Hatton said. "This really is my kind of fight.

"Styles make fights and we are two people who don't take a backward step."

Hatton upped the ante even further by claiming that the match-up could even eclipse the classic Castillo fight against Diego Corrales, which he himself admitted was "one of the fights of the century".

"If there was any pair-up of styles that could beat that, you would have to say it was me and Castillo," Hatton continued.

"People have DVDs of great fights on their shelves and I want a Ricky Hatton fight to be one of those."

He added: "If you want to see two guys knock the hell out of each other, then come and watch us."

The fight is being billed as one of the year's blockbusters and is scheduled for a premium Saturday night slot at the Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas this weekend.

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