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Boxing

Hatton hails support at weigh-in

08/12/2007

Ricky Hatton hailed his army of travelling fans at the weigh-in for his welterweight title showdown with Floyd Mayweather.

Thousands of British fans filled the MGM Grand hotel for the weigh-in and sang for Hatton as he took the stage.

Although the arena for tonight's fight holds only 13,000 people an estimated 6,000 turned up just to watch the weigh-in while thousands more are currently in Las Vegas.

Hatton said: "What I can say for a turn out like that? Absolutely fantastic."

The Hitman was two pounds under the 147 pound limit for what will be only his second bout at Welterweight in his career.

In his last welterweight outing Hatton beat Luis Collazo by a unanimous points decision in May last year.

Mayweather tipped the scales exactly on the 147 pound limit having dropped down in weight since his last fight against Oscar de la Hoya at light-middleweight in May.

At the final press conference earlier in the week the two men got into a minor scuffle when they faced each other nose-to-nose and passions were running high again at the weigh-in.

The pair exchanged words as they squared-up one more time before Hatton took the microphone to briefly thank his vocal supporters.

Hatton is giving away two inches in height to Mayweather and a full six inches in reach. However, Hatton has a better knockout success of 72 per cent compared to Mayweather's 63 per cent.

Both men are undefeated with Hatton winning 43 times and Mayweather 38 contests.