Boxing: Mayweather Demands a Hatton Summit

Floyd Mayweather is ready to end his brief retirement and meet Ricky Hatton this year, said his manager, Leonard Ellerbe. He was responding to the Mancunian's demand to fight the man generally regarded as the world's pound-for-pound No1, after Hatton knocked out Jose Luis Castillo on Saturday in Las Vegas.

Ellerbe said: "Hatton's trying to promote himself off Floyd's name and he [Mayweather] will kick his butt. Floyd told me he wants to get the deal on. Hatton slated Floyd [on television]. But that's OK, he's had his opportunity to talk. Now all he has to do is to sign a contract and we can get this done. We can have it this year, in the fall. We don't need to wait. Floyd won the 154lb [light-middleweight] title against Oscar de la Hoya but he's happy to come back down to 147lb to fight Hatton."

Mayweather himself confirmed he wants to face Hatton in the ring and said the British boxer's constant jibes about his fighting style had left him itching to prove a point. "I was retired but I'll sign to fight Hatton right now," he said. "I've tried to let the things he said about me slide by but now he's dissing me on national TV and I want to shut him up.

"I've never wanted to hurt an opponent like I do Hatton. For me, boxing is a science but it will be a pleasure to prove to the world what a great phoney the guy is. Ricky Hatton cannot fight. He cannot box. He throws one punch at a time and then holds. There is no skill to what he does in the ring. He has got zero skills."

Despite Hatton ending the Castillo fight with a crunching body shot in the fourth round, following on from Castillo giving Mayweather two of the toughest fights of his career before losing on points, Mayweather added: "Ricky Hatton is the most over-rated fighter of the last 25 years. He beat an old Castillo who was shot. I beat Castillo twice and the first time I did it with one hand because the other was so messed up. That was five years ago when Castillo was in his prime."