Manny Pacquiao says he was inspired by Ricky Hatton’s Las Vegas super show.
Hatton recently returned to something like his best when roaring to an 11th-round stoppage of Paulie Malignaggi in the MGM Grand.
That cemented the Hitman’s status as the best light-welterweight on the planet, and inspired the Pacman as he prepares for his own date with destiny against Oscar De La Hoya.
They meet in the fight of the year at the same venue on Saturday, and Pacquiao has again stated he’d be happy to fight Ricky once he’s through with the ‘Golden Boy’.
Writing in his training blog on espn.com, he revealed: “I was really inspired by watching Ricky Hatton win his fight against Paulie Malignaggi. It was a good fight and I would like to fight Ricky Hatton.
“After my fight with Oscar, I will go back down to 140, which is Hatton’s weight, so maybe that fight can happen. But for now I am focused on De La Hoya, and I don’t want to do anything to disturb my concentration for that fight.”
Pacquiao, despite being the current P4P king, will come in as a definite underdog against De La Hoya, mainly because he’s much smaller.
Just over a year ago Oscar was a light-middleweight (154lbs) while Manny was plying his trade at super-feather (130lbs).
On Saturday they meet at 147, and Pacman says the critics blasting the fight as a mismatch are making too much of the old adage that size matters.
He added: “People have talked a lot about the fact that De La Hoya is bigger than me, that I began my career at 106 pounds, that he has fought at 160.
“But I was very young, 16 years old, when I started my professional career, and I have been continuing to grow ever since. I’m not that small. I’m 149, 150 right now and I have some time to come down to 147.
“We haven’t really changed our training very much even though this is a higher weight. We’ve done some things to build up muscle and not cut weight, but mostly we have been concentrating on things like head movement and strategy and style for dealing with Oscar.”
