Ricky to live £15m American dream

It was a body punch described by the leathered old fight mogul Bob Arum as: “Something I’ve seen done as well no more than five times in 42 years in the sport.”

In his more gritty, northern way, Hatton called it simply: “A right rib-bender.”

Jose Luis Castillo gulped for air and eventually recovered to name it as “the perfect shot”. He added: “I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t get up.”

But this was only after he had been forced to endure 30 seconds wheezing and gasping on the ring canvas while the remnants of his great career expired around him, too.

It was the first time he has ever made contact with the canvas in all the 17 years he spent building a reputation as one of the fighting land of Mexico’s finest men.

But then this was the first time he had ever been hit like that in the side of his back, where his kidneys rattled in his ribcage and his body immediately sent out a shutdown message.

This was the first time he had met Hatton, the Manchester Hitman who is now poised for a serious level of

appreciation and the accompanying riches in the USA.

The fourth-round stoppage of Castillo at the Thomas and Mack Center was applied with such ferocious impact it will reverberate all around the lavish New York offices where America’s TV men put the noughts on the cheques.

They will make Hatton ludicrously rich in a new deal, but they can also give him what he wants much more than money: more of the fights against the stellar names to give him a polished pedestal in his tough business’s history.

Floyd Mayweather junior is the man he wants most, but it will be tricky. Oscar de la Hoya is a possibility,

along with the rip-roaring Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto. 

Another New York idol, the brash holder of Hatton’s old IBF light-welter title, Paul Malignaggi, is in the mix, too.

Veteran promoter Arum embellished his appreciation of Hatton’s thudding punch with this observation: “He can be huge in America now. People here love fighters like him.”

The boss of HBO, boxing’s top US boxing broadcaster with whom Hatton can now thrash out a new, improved deal, was talking big names and numbers after this conformation proved that Hatton can be a superstar after all.

“He has the appeal and charisma to carry the biggest stage,” said Kery Davis. “We’d love to see him in more big fights here. He has made huge progress in the US.”

It is not merely the style of Hatton, his combative approach and the ferocity of the way he leaped upon Castillo here, which endeared him to Davis.

America likes the raucous racket that follows the Hatton caravan.

Their TV cameras lingered on the noisy Rainbow Coalition of 9,000 fans who followed him here and dressed the arena in Manchester City blue and the colours of four dozen other British football clubs, too.

Hatton’s third fight in America took place in an extraordinary atmosphere.

It was finished far more quickly than The Strip bookies expected. But then Hatton sensed quickly that he was much stronger than the shopworn 33-year-old before him. This handed him the first two rounds in compelling fashion.

Hatton, 28, tore rapidly into the Mexican, then got to work in the tough territory inside.

Castillo battled gamely to answer back in the close-in collisions but also had to call upon a veteran’s knowledge of clinching and holding to survive.

Two big uppercuts made Castillo wince in the first round. In the second, two lefts to the body signalled what was soon to come. 

It made Castillo seem a fighter hollowed out by the big wars he endured with the late Diego Corrales and by the financial problems which still beset him even as he stepped into the ring.

This does not detract from what Hatton achieved. And the third round briefly altered that idea, anyway, as Castillo shook Hatton with two upper cuts fired from inside.

After the next bell, Castillo was deducted a point following a series of low blows but it was inconsequential. Soon after came the huge body punch, aimed as Castillo stepped away, which pinned him, gasping, to the floor.

He could not get up, and referee Joe Cortez ended the fight after two minutes and 16 seconds of the fourth.

“I’ve definitely proved the fat man is back,” said Hatton. “I hit him with a left and then another left and it just about cut him in half.

“I was going for the body from the first round and I’ve got him with one of the best shots I’ve ever thrown.

“I was disappointed with my last two performances in America. A frustrated man got in the ring here. Now I’ve put on a performance that shows the real Ricky Hatton.”

Hatton then said he was off into the night to “do battle with Mr Guinness”. It was a contest, he said, “that I will lose in the end”.

The doubts – his own as well as America’s – had been swept away  in extraordinary fashion.

Hatton has shown his endearing talent for boozy laddishness does not blunt his searing, fearsome talent. Instead, it is making America love him even more for being a true fighting man of the old school.