It has taken longer than usual before a big fight in Vegas, but the rumours have started leaking ahead of Ricky Hatton's meeting with Manny Pacquiao on Saturday night.
Rumour 1) Hatton finished his sparring on Wednesday of last week, two days earlier than usual, not because he and his trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr, were happy they could not make him any sharper but because he had to have a cortisone injection in his left elbow.
Hatton shot that one down. He said he's never been fitter before a fight. While he nearly always says that, I could find no confirmation of the story, and he did not appear at all uncomfortable when he met the British press on Monday night. He was alert, relaxed, confident and slim.
"I gave the sparring partners a right hiding," he says. "That's the way you want it to be in your last session. Normally we'd do our last session on the Friday but we didn't need to. There's only one way you can go when you've got it just right, and that's backwards."
Rumour 2) This one is harder to pin down or stand up: Mayweather Sr is seriously put out by the way some members of the entourage are treating him. They ignore him in the gym and, generally, leave him out of the loop.
The story goes that when they went to Los Angeles for a press conference last week, they did not tell him they were staying overnight and he consequently did not bring with him the medication he needs for his debilitating chest condition. Instead, he turned up in his suit, with no change of clothes, and someone had to rush to a drugstore to get his medicine.
If Mayweather, a fiercely proud but vulnerable man, is put out, this might explain a story in the Daily Mirror this week, which quoted him as saying, "I taught Ricky to box. Ricky didn't know anything when I started with him. He had brute strength, that was it. When I first went down to England to see him, you know, it was horrendous. But you look at him today, he's totally different." This, of course, contradicted his earlier view that, "Ricky could win this fight without me. But he has a much better chance with me."
It also does not quite fit with Hatton's take on his development. "I always had a good jab," he says. "I always had good boxing ability, I always had great footwork but I think that certainly in the past five or six years, I haven't used them properly."
Rumour 3) Billy Graham, whom Hatton sacked as his trainer before the Paul Malignaggi fight, is going through with his threat to sue the fighter for 10% of his earnings in the 10 years he was with him. That cut might be as high as £3m. Graham will remember that Kevin Rooney successfully sued Mike Tyson for a similar amount. Whatever, it's sad to hear Graham tell the Sun: "It's been a fairytale and the fairytale has now been ruined. For me it has, anyway. I loved him."
The truth of that story will be tested in the most public forum, the courts.
It might explain, also, Hatton's continued references to the good times with Graham. He peppers nearly every discussion about his switch to Mayweather Sr with phrases such as "Don't get me wrong, what Billy and me had was special." He refers time and again to Graham's failing health and inability to stand up to the rigours of training. What then, of Mayweather, who looks and talks like a man half his age but inside is struggling with lungs that cause him serious pain?
Rumour 4) Hatton was rocked a few times by sparring partners in the early part of his preparation in Las Vegas. Well, what can you say? To buy into this you have to believe that boxing is a no-risk business where the main man gets to throw all the punches, with none coming back. Fighters invariably take a shot or two getting ready for a fight. What the rumour didn't add was that Hatton held the shots.
Here
We always get this kind of stuff before fights, no big deal but I thought I may aswell post it.
