by James Riddick

Created on: January 12, 2009

The MGM Grand, Las Vegas was the scene of one of the fights of 2007, when Ricky "the Hitman" Hatton faced Floyd Mayweather Jr on December 8th, in what was the biggest clash of his career.

The result of the fight gave us confirmation of the Mayweather's position as number one pound for pound fighter in the world and the was the first professional defeat for the Hitman

Going into the fight Mayweather was the odds on favourite to be victorious, much the same as Kostya Tszyu had been when Hatton met the Light Welterweight great in 2005. In fact, Tszyu was 4-1 on to beat Hatton, even Mayweather wasn't such a strong favourite.

Going into the fight both men had perfect unblemished records, Hatton 43-0, with Mayweather 38-0, as the tag line went "Undefeated, someone's O has to go", and it did, in brutal and fascinating fashion.

Hatton was venturing up in weight for the second time in his career, the first an unconvincing, but ultimately successful split decision victory over Luis Collazo for the WBA Welterweight title in May 2006.

Undeterred from his below par performance, Hatton agreed to take on the universally acknowledged pound for pound number one fighter, in a weight division which was not his usual, and to cap it off, this was to be in Mayweather's adopted home, Las Vegas. This is not to say Mayweather would enjoy the benefit of the home crowd as Mayweather was and is, a widely disliked fighter for his arrogance and bravado, and also his defensive fighting style and allegations he has ducked more difficult fights in favour of carefully picking his bouts against less dangerous opposition. One such example is the refusla to accept a career high purse against Antonion Margarito, the tough and uncompromising Mexican warrior.

Also, Hatton's travelling support would mean most of Manchester would descend upon Las Vegas to cheer on their local hero, hopefully to a famous victory. In fact, it is claimed somewhere in the region of 30,000 British fans were in Vegas over the weekend of the 8th, and I was lucky enough to be one of them.

One unsavoury moment I feel I must address was the unacceptable behaviour of the British support towards the US National Anthem. I can only apologise for the complete lack of respect paid to both the Star Spangled Banner, and the United States as a whole. Rest assured not all us fans behaved so disgracefully, but sufficient numbers did, so as to mean that in Hatton's next bout in Las Vegas, against Paulie Malignaggi in November 2008 no anthems were

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