Floyd Sr warns Hatton: Forget booze, parties

Floyd Mayweather Sr. is “pretty sure” he’d be back as Ricky Hatton’s trainer when the pride of Manchester stakes his IBO super-lightweight crown against Manny Pacquiao on May 2.

And if he does, the flamboyant trainer and father of Floyd “Pretty Boy” Mayweather Jr. might just impose the same rules on Hatton: no booze, no junk food, no parties, no late nights.

If Floyd Sr. could have his way, Hatton should have “nothing but boxing” in his mind when he starts preparing for the big fight in Las Vegas.

Floyd Sr. the other day told Filipino sports radio program Sports Chat that he hasn’t talked to Hatton recently, but again he’s “pretty sure” that he’d get the job to train him against Pacquiao.

Mark Vester of BoxingScene.com then wrote that Hatton has the “legendary reputation, on both sides of the ocean, for his ability to drink himself silly” and “parties often, eats plenty of junk food, and his weight jumps to the middleweight levels.”

This practice, the article, said, makes or forces Hatton to work extra hard in training. No wonder the 30-year-old slugger said he wants to train 12 to 13 weeks for the Pacquiao fight.

The Filipino superstar, on the other hand, said he’d need no more than eight to nine weeks to get in top shape for the biggest fight of his career – money-wise.

“He needs to stop drinking right now and forget about this sh*t right now because it is no good for him. He knows it is no good for him but he still does it,” Floyd Sr. told BoxingScene.com as Hatton geared up for his fight with Paul Malignaggi last November.

Hatton may have done as his trainer wished, as he dished out a worthy performance, knocking out Malignaggi and in the process earning a shot at Pacquiao who later on demolished Oscar dela Hoya.

Hatton also stands to earn his biggest paycheck for the coming fight.

“I think Ricky can be a much, much better fighter if he starts doing the right things with his lifestyle and body. You can’t get big like that and take your body down, and then get big again and take your body down, and then do it all again. It’s no good and it catches up with you,” he was quoted as saying.

“I don’t like boxers drinking and Ricky would be much better off without it. I don’t like it. It ain’t going do no fighter no good. I hope in some kind of way I have got into his head and that he is going to do the right things.”