While I did not attend the actual fight, I did attend the raucus weigh in for the Ricky Hatton vs. Floyd Mayweather showdown at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. After spending four hours with six thousand Brits at the weigh in, I had absolutely no interest in spending Saturday night with 20,000 of them.

The scene in Las Vegas this weekend was surreal. Between the 20,000 Brits who flew over to the Colonies with no tickets, and the 40,000 rednecks in town for the National Finals Rodeo, the whole town was insane. I had tickets to the fight, but there was nothing in the world that could have gotten me into that room on Saturday night. So we ordered a bunch of pizzas and the pay-per-view, and stayed clear of the strip on Saturday.

And if you’re wondering whether rednecks still exist, I can strongly confirm that they do. And I have nothing against cowboys, rodeo fans, or anyone with a cowboy hat. Hell, I own cowboy hats, boots, and enjoy country music. But there are some true rednecks out there, and they are giving a lot of people a bad reputation. There were five of us sitting around, enjoying some adult beverages at the Gold Coast on Saturday night after the fight. A redneck in a cowboy hat comes up to us and proceeds to complain that his face hurts because he was pepper-sprayed. At that point, you feel for his pain, and wonder why he got pepper-sprayed. As he tells it, there was no good reason. He was simply taking a piss on the side of the building, and when someone caught him and yelled at him, he proceeded to call him a ni**er. And in his watered eyes, there was nothing wrong with this. So he proceeded to try to talk our ears off about how that ni**er is lucky he didn’t have his .45 on him. And how he’s lucky that he didn’t beat his ass. Meanwhile, the redneck is about 5′10″ and 140 pounds, but as he told it, that ni**er had it coming. Sometimes it takes a night like that to realize just how messed up some of this country still is. But I digress…

As for the fight, unfortunately, it’s what all of our heads told us was going to happen, no matter how much our hearts fought it. So while the fight was what it was, the weigh-in was a different animal altogether. I’m sure the crowd on fight night was just as crazy, but at the weigh-in, they seemed to run the show and have the place to themselves.

Let me set the scene for you…

I call on Thursday to find out what time the weigh-in is scheduled for and they tell me it’s a 2:30 weigh-in and the doors will open at 1:00. I got shut out of the De La Hoya – Mayweather weigh-in, so we decided to go early. Upon arriving at the Grand Garden Arena at around 11:00am, we find the doors already open, so we go on in. We are greeted by about 4,000 drunk Brits who have been there seemingly for hours. We take a seat on the side of the stage, and proceed to get serenaded by the drunks for the next three hours.

“There’s only one Ricky Hatton,
One Ricky Hatton,
Walking along, singing a song,
Walking in a Hatton Wonderland…”

Repeat this in your head 200 times in the next three hours and let’s see if you can get it out of your head. In between each rendition of this song, the mob continued to alternate between several soccer chants, “God Save the Queen”, and whatever insult they were hurling at one Mayweather fan with their 5999-to-1 advantage.

They proceeded to tell the bussed in children on Floyd’s side of the room that “You should be in school right now,” among some four letter words. One female had the nerve to dance with Hatton’s “band” and was “asked” by the crowd to “show your tits to the lads” in song form.

It’s actually quite impressive, and a sight to behold watching all of these fans sing and chant in perfect sychronization.

Other than the actual weigh-in, the most dramatic and enjoyable part of the afternoon came when Joe Calzaghe and Bernard Hopkins were on the stage together and the crowd let Hopkins know just how much he is the draw in their proposed fight.

After leading a chorus of “One Calzaghe”, and another of “Super Joe”, the crowd went into a beautiful rendition of the song “Hopkins is a Pussy”. This did not go over well with B-Hop, and the two got all up in each other’s fries in what will hopefully lead to a 2008 match between the two.

Luckily for you, I had a camera with me, so here are the videos I shot at the Hatton – Mayweather weigh-in. You can right click the files to “save as” and then watch them on your player of choice.

There’s Only One Ricky Hatton

God Save the Queen

Oscar, Enzo Maccarinelli and Joe Calzaghe take the stage

One Calzaghe song

Calzaghe vs. Hopkins face off

Hatton and Mayweather are introduced

Hatton weighs in

Floyd weighs in – ensuing staredown

Hatton speaks to the crowd

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