By Dave Lahr: At yesterday’s weigh-in for tonight’s IBO title bout at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Ricky Hatton came in at 140, and Manny Pacquiao weighed in at 138. Both fighters are in top shape and appear to be ready to go for their huge mega fight tonight. Pacquiao (48-3-2, 36 KOs) is a solid favorite over two division champion Hatton (45-1, 32 KOs). However, despite being the underdog, Hatton looks confident and prepared to do battle with the Filipino star.
A reported 25,000 British fans have arrived to show support to Ricky Hatton, although it’s unclear just how many of the fans will be in the area tonight, as the MGM Grand arena seating capacity is only 17,157, which means that quite a few of Hatton’s fans won’t make it into the fight unless someone opens the doors and just lets them in for free.
A huge amount of Hatton’s fans showed up for the weigh-in, and naturally outnumbered Pacquiao’s fans by a substantial number as they shouted them down. Pacquiao will be seeking his 6th weight division title, although the IBO isn’t thought of by many boxing fans to be the same as the other alphabet titles in terms of value.
Hatton has only been defeated once in his career, a 10th round stoppage loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in December 2007. For his part, Pacquiao has been defeated several times, although his last defeat was four years ago to Erik Morales in 2005. Since then, Pacquiao has been perfect, beating his last nine opponents and knocking six of them out.
Pacquiao avenged his defeat at the hands of Morales by beating him twice by knockout during that time. However, by then Morales wasn’t quite the same fighter he had been in 2005 and was dealing with problems trying to make the super featherweight weight limit for his fights with Pacquiao.
Hatton will be attempting to take Pacquiao’s pound-for-pound status as the best fighter in the boxing world tonight. It’s a prestigious award, one that generally doesn’t last for very long due to the short period of time that fighters are at the top of their game.
Pacquiao has been one of the few that have been able to stay on top for a fairly lengthy period of time, but Hatton is hoping to take that title from Pacquiao if he can somehow find a way to beat the Filipino star. If Hatton can somehow get by Pacquiao, which will be no easy task since Hatton is a huge underdog for the fight, Hatton wants to go after Mayweather and try to get revenge for his loss to Floyd two years ago in December 2007.
Things are a little different since then, because Hatton is now trained by Floyd Mayweather Sr., Floyd Jr’s father. Hatton’s style has gone through some changes since his fight with Juan Lazcano, the last one under his old trainer Billy Graham, and Hatton is now fighting in more of a true boxer/puncher style rather than his pure slugging method of fighting previous to Mayweather Sr, joining up with Hatton.
Also on the card, World Boxing Council super featherweight champion Humberto Soto weighed in at 130, ands his opponent for tonight, Canadian challenger Benoit Gaudet came in at 129.