Boxing fans descend on Las Vegas for Hopkins showdown

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - About 8,000 Britons are expected in Las Vegas for Saturday's light-heavyweight clash between Joe Calzaghe and American Bernard Hopkins.

Fans of the Welshman, who is the undisputed world super-middleweight champion, are expected to outnumber Hopkins supporters at the Thomas & Mack Arena.

That prompted Calzaghe's promoter Frank Warren to taunt his opponent at this week's final pre-fight news conference.

"On the night, most of the support in the arena is going to be again for the Brits," he said. "Are the Americans going to come out for their man? Because otherwise he's going to be drowned out, because they'll just be cheering Joe Calzaghe."

Even so, many American observers have expressed some disappointment in the turnout so far in comparison to the estimated 20,000 or so British fans who showed up for Floyd Mayweather's victory over challenger Ricky Hatton in December.

Hatton's followers transformed Sin City into a corner of his hometown of Manchester when WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather knocked him out in the 10th round at the MGM Grand.

Part of the reason, according to Gareth Davies of the Daily Telegraph newspaper in London, was that Calzaghe "doesn't have the same rabid following (as Hatton). He doesn't have the same recognition in Britain, and I think wrongly.

"He lives in a small town, he isn't giving press conferences in London all the time. I don't think he is perhaps given the stage that he would have got had he been a London fighter."

IMPRESSIVE SUPPORT

Even so, Davies said that, by any other standard, Calzaghe's traveling support is impressive.

"Bruno had four, five, six thousand people come out and nobody was raving about how few people had come out to see him," he said. "Ricky Hatton broke all those records in a sense."

Britain's popular WBC heavyweight champion Frank Bruno was knocked out by Mike Tyson in Las Vegas in 1996.

The atmosphere was more than sufficient for Londoner Tony Crawford, who had come with his friend Sean McNamara and had wanted to attend a fight in Las Vegas since he was a child.

"I remember sitting with my dad, watching Sugar Ray Leonard fight at Caesars Palace," Crawford told Reuters.

Crawford and McNamara had considered making the trip to watch Hatton in December but stayed home, which they regretted.

"We watched it on TV at four in the morning and we said to each other, 'We're going to the next one,' " said Crawford.

He added that it would be the sixth or seventh time they have been ringside for a Calzaghe fight.

As they talked, they noticed boxing historian Bert Sugar nearby and Calzaghe's stablemate, former WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Macarinelli, sitting a few feet away.

The previous might the Londoners had played roulette with Britain's world lightweight contender Amir Khan.

"It's great this, isn't it?" marveled Crawford. "You don't get this back home."

(Editing by Ken Ferris)