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hatton hopes to bring home the bacon
Thu 11 May, 7:09 PM
Ricky Hatton may be 3,000 miles from home but he has stopped at nothing to ensure the continuation of his great pre-fight tradition ahead of Saturday's clash with Luis Collazo.
Hatton will spend Saturday morning tucking into his favourite greasy spoon fry-up after convincing his plush Boston hotel of the need to fuel his unlikely appetite for success.
Traditionally, Hatton spends the morning of his fights gobbling down the £3.80 'mega-breakfast' at The Butty Box cafe round the corner from his home in Hyde.
And he admitted the prospect of his first fight across the Atlantic in six years had given him plenty of food for thought once contracts with WBA welterweight champion Collazo had been signed.
Hatton said: "In America you can either get sausage and egg or bacon and egg. They never do the full shebang - black pudding, sausage, bacon and egg - so as soon as I got here I had a word.
"It's only a superstition thing but when you get off the scales and you've had your weigh-in it's important that you get your protein and the right things."
Perhaps that had something to do with the Hatton camp's choice of venue - Boston is nicknamed 'Beantown' due to early merchants' habits of creating baked beans by soaking them in imported molasses.
Unsurprisingly Hatton has had few problems bulking up to the welterweight limit for the first time to face Brooklyn southpaw Collazo, whom he met at a head-to-head press conference in Boston today.
And he stared at further temptation during the press conference when Collazo presented his opponent with a six-pack of Guinness. "That is the only six-pack we're going to see tomorrow," Collazo joked.
Hatton's regular dietary regime in training consists of five meals of chicken and green vegetables a day and is rigidly administered by his nutritionist Kerry Kayes.
But Hatton, who freely admits to ballooning beyond 12 stone between fights, says he can hardly wait to get back to his preferred diet of fried food and pints of bitter.
He added: "When you've been in training for three months and had fish and chicken and green veg and potatoes and all that crap, you just want something that makes you feel better.
"Kerry Kayes pulls his hair out and says it will do nothing for me but I say no, it makes me feel better, I had my pasta yesterday so shut up and leave me alone."
However Collazo, who claimed the WBA title against Jose Rivera last April, believes Hatton's dietary regime may come back to haunt him as he bulks up the extra seven pounds for the first time.
Collazo said: "I'm a natural welterweight and he's really a light welterweight and it's going to be a big factor. When he gains weight after the weigh-in it is going to be nothing but fat.
"I'm slick, I'm fast, I've got good feet movement, I'm a southpaw and I'm young. I know everybody is talking about Ricky fighting Floyd Mayweather but I feel he is overlooking me."
The respectful 25-year-old from Brooklyn is not renowned for his punching power with only 12 of his 26 career victories coming by way of early stoppage.
But his points win over Rivera was made to look a lot better this week when his opponent successfully moved up to light-middle and claimed the WBA belt by decision over Alejandro Garcia.
Collazo added: "I am going to go in there and give 110% like I always do and if he is overlooking me it is his fault and I don't have anything to do with that.
"I'm always the underdog and that gives me the motivation to take this to another level and shock a lot of people. This is the biggest fight of my life and the fight I want."
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Originally Posted by miles
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