Hitman Hatton will outgun Mayweather, says De La Hoya

ONLY a big fight night in the Big Apple can start with Don King in a Santa Claus outfit and end with a promoter and his boxer both staking claims to fight the same man.

So it was on Saturday night, as King came bringing gifts unseasonably early in the form of a January 19 fight between Felix Trinidad and Roy Jones Jr before Miguel Cotto defeated Sugar Shane Mosley, and then heard that fight’s co-promoter Oscar De La Hoya, drop a strong hint that he fancied a match with the British world champion he sought to face.

HBO executive Mark Taffet said he thought he was working too hard and sleeping too little when he arrived at his Manhattan office on Saturday to see the demonic grin of outlandish promoter King beaming from underneath a red Santa Claus hat.