Boxing: Mayweather and his 'issues' cloud final hours before bout

Signs of strain in Ricky Hatton’s camp emerged last night on the eve of his fight against the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter Manny Pacquiao.

Though the fighter’s father and manager, Ray, said that his son’s trainer Floyd Mayweather Snr would be in the corner for his defence of the IBO and Ring Magazine’s world light welterweight titles it seems that the relationship could be on its last legs.

Mayweather, estranged father of Floyd Mayweather Jnr, Hatton’s conqueror here 17 months ago, is reported to have said that there are “issues”. They are thought to concern money.

Much of Hatton’s preparation for the potentially career-defining fight against Pacquiao was in the hands of assistant trainer Lee Beard, and some of Mayweather’s recent statements, particularly his heated and bitter exchanges with Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, have been regarded as erratic.

However, at yesterday’s tumultuous weigh-in, where the British fighter’s supporters were estimated to have overnumbered the Filipino’s by two to one, Mayweather was in the forefront of the Hatton team. He peered intently at the machine when Hatton scaled 10 stone, the division limit, and Pacquiao, a 1-3 favourite came in two pounds lighter.