"I was doing all right until I @$@&* slipped. Oh, sorry, I'm at it again, swearing in front of the kids…"

One minute Ricky Hatton’s getting his head scrambled by Floyd Mayweather, the next he’s firing off rat-a-tat quips. The Hitman, make no mistake, is one classy guy.

When his marching band sparked up another round of Walking In A Hatton Wonderland, Hatton wise-cracked: "I'm getting a bit sick of that song meself to be honest with ya…"

Mayweather, with barely a mark on his face, gave him a hug, thanked the band, waxed lyrical about the British fans and launched into a little song of his own.

"There's only one Mayweather, there’s only one Mayweather, he talks the talk, walks the walk, walking to the money land."

His trainer and uncle Roger, an unwitting comic genius, clearly thought it was rubbish and he made no secret of the fact, shaking his head and rolling his eyes like a grandmother desperate to escape a family wedding.

Hatton was then introduced, one by one, to the entire Mayweather clan, and it was strange to think that only an hour earlier both men were going at it hammer and tongs in the ring.

Some newspapers were reporting that 4,000 Brits were expected at the fight, but I’d wager there were closer to 15,000 in the MGM Grand Arena on the night.

They were a little bit naughty at times, what with booing the Star Spangled Banner, and you had to feel for poor Tyrese, who must have felt at times as if he was warbling into a wind tunnel.

But otherwise they were tremendous, as they have been all week, and you can be 100% certain that Las Vegas will never witness anything like it again.

"You're supposed to be at home," they roared at one point, which summed the situation up perfectly.

Sir Tom Jones (that still sounds a bit weird) had no such trouble, although accompanied by a chorus of thousands, he proved a touch superfluous.

As David Beckham made his way to his ringside seat, I was reminded of a tremendous quote I read earlier in the week on the Fox Sports website:

"If Hatton so much as gets in the ring on Saturday night, he will have accomplished more than the last British export, the metrosexual soccer star with the bony wife."

Other ringside celebs included Tiger Woods, who always looks a little odd without a cap, Will Ferrell (other than Hatton, the biggest cheer of the night) and Gwen Stefani, a magnificent woman and a huge boxing fan, or so I'm told.

Sly Stallone and Bruce Willis were also in attendance, joshing with each other like a couple of high-school jocks, and all the pieces of the puzzle were in place as Blue Moon sparked up and Hatton made his way to the ring.

Mayweather, decked out in a George Cross dressing gown, entered to Springsteen's Born in the USA, a big middle finger to the Hatton fans, and why not?

I swear I saw Hatton glance nervously up at the crowd before the bell sounded for the opening round, perhaps realising the enormous responsibility as well as the enormity of his task.

Ring announcer Michael Buffer, who is now so famous in his own right he has another ring announcer introduce him to the fans, could barely be heard above the din, but did hear him say "somebody's '0' has got to go", so he's still a ruddy legend.

And then…well, then we know what happened. We saw a masterclass in boxing from Floyd Mayweather, and there really is nothing more to say on the subject than that.

The Hatton fans around me knew the game was up when 'The Hitman' was docked a point in the sixth, proving that for all their bluster, they're also a knowledgeable lot.

Ricky apologised to them afterwards, but they were having none of it, serenading him with as much gusto as they would have done if he'd knocked Mayweather bandy inside one round.

"I’ve been coming to Las Vegas for longer than I care to remember," said Ricky after the fight. "I watched Frank Bruno here, Naseem Hamed, Lennox Lewis, all my heroes.

"And I've never seen support for a British fighter like they gave me this week, it brings a tear to your eye." And not just your eye, Ricky, I can assure you of that…

PS. I looked at myself in the mirror before I started writing this. After a week of buffet breakfasts and lunches, pizza every night for dinner and a thousand cigarettes, I'm bloated, my skin's gone to pot and, to be brutally frank, I look a little bit ill.

That's what this town does to you. But what’s a bit of illness when you get to experience a 'happening' like this? Those who witnessed the events of this week will never forget them. Here's hoping for Calzaghe-Hopkins in New York next spring…