Hatton (right) with Gomez (left) and Newsmonster's Jarvis.

Somewhere in Las Vegas Ricky Hatton is downing a few  drinks.

And he won’t stop until the desert sun comes up over the strip to herald a new day in Fight Town .

The Manchester Hitman and mental Man City fan has just put Vegas in his back pocket and he’s necking a few.

Three hours earlier he beat Colombia ’s Juan Urango to regain the IBF light welterweight title he never lost in the ring. The Yanks are warming to him and it’s party time!

Meanwhile out on the strip his mother Carol, a former publican, has already downed a few Vodkas and she’s ready to rumble.

She’s walking down the strip in the chill night air with husband Ray when she recognises Ricky’s next opponent, the legendary Mexican fighter Jose Luis Castillo.

He’s about to board his limo outside Caesars Palace when she totters up for a quick word.

It’s a bit like Bet Lynch from the Rovers tapping Muhammad Ali on the shoulder and saying: “Got a minute luv!” Only this is less friendly.

Castillo fought on the same bill as Ricky earlier that night and moves towards her.

“Me Mamma Hatton,” Carol says in her best Spanish/Manc accent rocking her arms back and forth as if cradling a baby Ricky.

“Me Mamma Hatton,” she says again, now jabbing a finger at the now bemused Castillo, ”and in June Ricky knocks you out.”

The smile drops from Castillo’s lips as though he’d just taken one of the Hitman’s withering body shots.

“Only joking luv,” she says as she moves away to rejoin her husband Ray.

“But he’s still going to knock you out,” she spits out as she and Ray walk off into the neon night. Turns out she she was spot on. That is exactly what he did.

Jose Luis “El Terrible” Castillo, former two weight world champ, is left open mouthed on the Vegas sidewalk. He knows he has just lost on points to the Hitman’s mum and he never even threw a punch. On June 23 when he faced the Hitman for real he lost again - only it was lot more painful.

This town loves a bit of pre fight hype and while Ricky’s mum may not be in Ali’s league ala “We gonna get it on, ‘cos we don’t get along” pre the Rumble in the Jungle in ’74 -  it ain’t bad in the week when the Greatest celebrated his 65th birthday.

That was back in January 2007 and when Newsmonster caught up with Ricky later that night in the boozer he couldn’t stop laughing.

“That’s all I need,” he said. “Mind you it could be worse. I could be fighting my mum in June.”

Ricky Hatton, aged 28, is regarded at Britain’s best pound for pound boxer – that means in any weight division - and he is ranked above Joe Calzaghe who has reigned supreme in the super middleweight division since 1997.

Ricky won the light welterweight title in 2005 by beating the long-reigning undisputed world champ Kostya Tszyu. Not only did this make him undisputed world champ – it earned him the title of Fighter of the Year by the prestigious Ring magazine in America . No other Brit fighter – Calzaghe included – has earned this accolade. Not even Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Prince Naseem Hamed or Lennox Lewis came close to that kind of recognition.

It tends to be the greats who get that kind of respect – previous winners are Gene Tunney, Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano and Sugar Ray Robinson.

Following that the American sports writers also named him their fighter of the year. He has had 42 fights with no defeats. He wants to go down as one of the greats. He has a TV deal with American network HBO and pocketed £2m for out pointing Urango with a display of clever boxing against the previously unbeaten Colombian. He won clearly on the score cards after surviving a brutal body attack in the 5th and being chinned in one of the middle rounds with a head butt he thought had knocked his teeth out. But it’s not just about a fist full of dollars. Hitman Hatton is a man on a mission to greatness and that means cracking America . And that means Vegas. Newsmonster was there on January 20th with exclusive access in the dressing room, ringside and the after fight booze up. Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas .

It’s 3am on the morning of the big fight and Ricky and his trainer Billy “The Preacher” Graham are tucked up - separate beds of course – no offence champ!

Your author is on the piss in the Circular bar of the fight venue The Paris Las Vegas – not so much a hotel as a recreation of the French capital with a hotel and Eiffel Tower – half the height of the real thing - thrown in.

Three thousand Mancs are staggering around the slots and the bars occasionally breaking into a chorus of “There’s Only One Ricky Hatton” and the Yanks mostly smile as if to say: “We just don’t get it.”

“Gee, who is this Ricky guy!” they say.

“He’s a legend mate,” we say, “And you’re gonna hear a lot more about him.”

Ricky’s journey to fight city began on a hot night in Manchester on June 4, 2005 when he dethroned Kostya Tszyu and announced to the Americans he was the real deal.

I was there with 15,000 crazy Mancunians when long-reigning champ Tszyu couldn’t come out for the 12th round as I was in Sheffield on November 26, 2005 when he knocked out WBA light welterweight champ Carlos Maussa.

I’ve watched him train in his gym in Denton, Manchester and seen the joy on his face when his pal Michael Gomez battered Alex Arthur to defeat in a wild fight in Edinburgh to lift the British super featherweight belt back in 2003.

Now it’s Vegas, graveyard of some great Brits like Honeyghan, McGuigan and Bruno. But Ricky is something special. That’s the word among the hacks. If his trade mark body attacks don’t do the trick he finds a way to win – and that’s what makes him stand out. He finds a way. And in the ring, finding a way to win at world level carries the whiff of greatness.

Okay so we had Lennox . But we never really bought the Lennox Lewis story.

Ricky is a much more exciting fighter than the ultra cautious dreadnaught and the Americans already seem to be warming to him for this reason.

And he is 100 per cent Brit – whereas with Lewis the Canadian connection always muddied the public perception – he was never really ours. No such problem with Hatton - he has 10 times the charisma of Lewis, a buzz saw all action style, and he loves a pint, so much so that his 10 stone fight frame can balloon between fights. Unlike Lewis he is still unbeaten. And he’s a bullshit-free zone.

The Urango fight is not vintage Hatton. The Colombian’s head is so hard he could drill for diamonds with it.

And his awkward southpaw style gives the Hitman problems.

Despite that Ricky delivers a hit and run boxing lesson for the first four rounds until Urango gets home in the fifth with a string of massive body shots. The champs sucks it up and keeps piling up the points until the massive clash of heads two rounds later which Ricky thought had shattered his teeth.

In his corner Billy Graham is beside himself telling Ricky to survive the final rounds and not to “get crazy with this fucker because he’s too strong”.

His anxious mother Carol is sipping Vodka from a small water bottle, her customary practice at all his fights.

It emerges afterwards that in the last four rounds Ricky is running out of steam because he had a cold the week before the fight. The last third of the bout is tense. Ricky is on a different planet boxing skill wise but Urango keeps coming as strong as a Pampas bull.

In those rounds Ricky hits and holds, still scoring while smothering the fresher Urango as he own strength drains.

He finds a way and it’s a landslide points win, the three judges all giving it to him by 119-109. Job done.

“It was like punching breeze blocks. I don’t think anybody will ever knock Urango out. You’d need a sledge hammer and they are not allowed in the ring.

“When he chinned me in the middle of the fight I thought my teeth had gone.

“I boxed his ears off and some of my fights have been a lot closer than that but he did hurt me when he got through. My sides are a bit sore from the body shots.”

That’s nothing to do with the booze at the after fight party?

“No that’s all down to Mr Urango not Mr Corona. I’ve only had a couple of hours sleep after the party. But I feel ok. It’s hard to sleep when you living your dream.”

So what do you make of Vegas champ?

“It’s Disneyland for adults.

“The whole experience in Vegas has been on a different level – almost a different planet. The people and the organisation has been spot on. My only criticism is I couldn’t find a pint of Guinness.

“I want to fight in Manchester again but I love Vegas. I’ve been here about 12 times now – mainly as a fight fan – and I know this is where I have to fight to make my legacy.

“It was always one of my goals to top the bill in Las Vegas . I grew up in the era of Leonard, Hearns and Hagler, and seeing them fight in Vegas got me into boxing. The fact I am fighting in the same city and topping the bill in a world title fight with my name up in lights on the Las Vegas strip is the stuff that dreams are made of. I am living the dream and I don’t want it to stop.

“We set up camp here two weeks before the fight and I think we got it spot on. But maybe next time I will spend more time here. That’s something I’ll have to talk about with Billy.”

But it hasn’t been plain sailing. After beating Tszyu Ricky split with his promoter Frank Warren. Hatton now has a new promoter Dennis Hobson of Fight Academy . Hobson, a Sheffield millionaire and former fighter, does a mean Ali shuffle, calls his mates “luv” has a beautiful assistant called Lynsey Lockey and won the Yanks over with his northern charm.

When Ricky hooked up with Hobson, things started to happen. Okay, since Hobson took over from Warren Ricky has started to make bigger purses. But it’s the march to boxing Valhalla that keeps him punching.

Ricky is on record as saying he did not want to fight top 10 fighters for the rest of his career. He only wants to fight the very best. And that’s why he is in Vegas.

My Vegas package deal to see it happen was unconventional to say the least.

Niall Hickman, boxing hack and ghost writer of Ricky’s official biography “Ricky Hatton The Hitman: My Story” and published by Ebury Press asked me if I’d like to flog his book to the Yanks outside the arena on fight night. If we were lucky it would pay for the hotel room and the flight. I was there like shit off the proverbial. Ebury shipped over the goodies and we did our Del and Rodders act right next to the T-shirt sellers.

“Ricky Hatton official biography. Not available anywhere else in the US of A,” was our pitch and we shifted enough copies at $35 a pop to break even.

Former IBF light welterweight champ, and Ricky opponent in 2003 Vince Phillips.
“Gee man I’m a bit short can have a copy for £20?” he said.

No problem Vince. I gave him one for free. Mr Hickman wasn’t too chuffed.
Niall was even less impressed minutes later when I again neglected my sales duties as boxing writer and guru Steve “Big Daddy” Bunce rocked up.

I failed to collect the readies from a chatty Manc who I handed a copy too as I engaged Mr Bunce in conversation. The Ricky fan was off on his toes without parting with a dollar. Sorry Niall.

While we were flogging our wears word reached us the Mancs had drunk the house dry and the arena had run out of beer. Predictable and impressive.         

Later that night at the after fight piss up at the Risqué club former Drifter Ray Lewis provided the live entertainment.

But he wasn’t a patch on Dennis Hobson doing the Ali shuffle at 5am after a skin full while shadow boxing with a young fighter called Nicky Smedley from Sheffield .

By now it’s 6am and in the VIP section the bruises and welts from battle are beginning to appear on Ricky’s face but he’s still going strong.

“What’s the point in being the world champ if you can’t have a beer with your mates,” he says. And he is right.

“If I started changing now everyone would think I was a complete Dickhead. It’s not going to happen.

“When I’m in training for a fight I live like a monk. But when the fight is over I like to party, have a few beers and eat a few pies.

“I can’t see that changing. Cheers.”

Back in the champs suite the following morning I’m having a much needed coffee.

I’m sitting next to Ricky in front of a panoramic window which catches every ray of a shimmering Vegas sun.

“Jesus, I don’t know what was in those shots,” he jokes.

“The ones I was drinking not the ones I was taking from Urango. He didn’t hit me that hard did he?”

He orders a full English for breakfast, signs my copy of his biography and then takes the piss out of his baby brother Matthew who won the IBF International welterweight belt on the undercard.

Matthew is wearing a spandex muscle vest and Ricky says:

“I think I’ll start calling you Tommy tight tops Matthew ‘cos you’re always wearing those vests.”

Matthew gives him the finger and Ricky responds by revealing: “He walked into my room this morning bollock naked apart from his belt. What’s that all about?”

He might be taking the piss but he is as proud as punch Matthew is making his way in the hardest game of all.

And it’s not just inside the ropes where the punches keep coming.

Boxing politics forced Ricky to relinquish the IBF belt he won against Tszyu and the WBA light welter belt against Carlos Maussa.

Difficulties with getting the right fights meant he went up to welterweight next – 7lbs above his natural weight division – to take on tough American Luis Collazo. He beat him in a gruelling battle to claim the WBA welterweight title which showed he should stay at light welter.

He is unlikely ever to have an easy fight again.

These days fans are more interested in the fighters than the belts and that is the main reason the Castillo fight was made.  It is not about the belt but about two great fighters. HBO to their credit are making fights the public wants as opposed to the safety first approach of some promoters. It’s a key reason Hatton is with them. Ricky relinquished the title he won against Urango because instead if fighting mandatory challenger Lovemore N’dou he faced – Castillo – for which only the IBO belt was on the line.

Such is life, but like other top fighters Hatton has become bigger than the belts.

His boxing goal is cast in stone. If he gets past Castillo, and I think he will, then they will try to put him in with Pretty Boy Floyd Mayweather, regarded as pound for pound the best fighter in the world and four-weight world champion.

If Ricky beats Mayweather he becomes the greatest Brit fighter of all time. No argument.

“That would be the icing on the cake,” says Ricky. “I’ve already surpassed some of my dreams. Beating Mayweather would probably be the end of the journey.

“But whatever happens now I will always be one of the lads in the pub, having a pint and playing darts. Outside the ring I will always be Joe Public.

“The good thing about my camp is that if boxing ended tomorrow we’d all still be mates.

“Me and Billy have never had more than a handshake and that’s how it will stay.”

At the airport on the way home there is Manc called Fred playing “There’s Only One Ricky Hatton,” on his mouth organ.

He looks like he hasn’t slept for a week. Ricky is back in his suite and planning a night out seeing Tom Jones.

If Ricky was at the airport you get the feeling he might just buy Fred a pint and enjoy his company a bit more than that of the Welsh crooner – no offence Tom.

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