Floyd Mayweather would have you believe Ricky Hatton's fight against Manny Pacquiao is simple math.
"We're going to win the fight because I'm the better coach, and my man is the better fighter," said Mayweather, Hatton's trainer. "With two plusses, and two negatives, who you think is going to win?"
Pacquiao (48-3-2) and Hatton were at a red carpet event at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood to promote the junior welterweight title fight for the first and only time in the U.S. Actors Mark Wahlberg and Mickey Rourke, and other Hollywood stars, attended the event.
UCLA men's basketball coach Ben Howland and former NFL linebacker Willie McGinest also attended the red-carpet event.
As for Hatton, he thinks Pacquiao's big win over Oscar De La Hoya in December was a fluke. Hatton (45-1, 32 KOs) is counting on beating the Filipino star on May 2 in Las Vegas.
"Any win against Oscar is a magnificent one. Is that the Oscar De La Hoya we have come to love? I don't think so," Hatton said. "And only Oscar can say what happened on the scales. He looked a shell of the Oscar we know. I don't think it was hard to beat Oscar that night."
Pacquiao wants the IBO title, which belongs to Hatton. And, Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, said it'll take three rounds to get it.
"I told Manny that if he doesn’t knock (Hatton) out in three rounds I'll be disappointed. (Manny's) training hard always and watching the tapes and dissecting Hatton’s style," said Roach, according to GMANews.tv.
Roach correctly predicted Pacquiao’s last two wins.
But Hatton thinks he will have a leg up against one of the sport's best pound-for-pound fighters.
"A lot of people are seeing it as size versus speed and a lot of people thought Paulie Malignaggi would outspeed me and that wasn't the case and that was only after seven weeks with my new training team," Hatton said.
"We're even quicker again. If you could see how fast I'm performing, there's not that big a gap there. Ultimately I think size will play a big factor. He has dangers in other areas, like his speed and footwork but I'm boxing a lot cuter than I was a few years ago."
Pacquiao is known for his speed. But he could be fighting his biggest opponent in Hatton. Pacquiao was fighting in the super featherweight division last March and weighed 129 pounds. He moved up to welterweight to fight De La Hoya, who lost weight for the matchup.
De La Hoya didn't come out of his corner after the eighth round. Hatton suggested that De La Hoya tried to make weight too early.
"That's what people believe. Maybe they were rooting for Oscar and maybe they were fans of Oscar," Pacquiao said. "It's hard to make reasons or alibis after the fight. It's not good."
Pacquiao told reporters he weighs 148 pounds. He is training with Freddie Roach in Hollywood and said camp was going well.
Hatton, who is training in Las Vegas, said he was feeling good at 150.
"We started training camp earlier, started sparring earlier, started running earlier. It's just because of the size of the fight. It's a fight I massively believe I can win. A boxer can't get any higher if he's the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world, so I need to just go about me business more so than ever."
