Last time we were here in Las Vegas it was exceeding 50 celsius, and proved quite a task wading through the treacly air to the venue where Ricky Hatton turned up the heat on Jose Luis Castillo.

This time there's Santa Claus bikinis in the shops but, alas, precious few being modelled up and down the Strip where the bright desert sun still gleams, albeit with a distinctly chilly edge.

At night the stars lose their battle for prominence against the city's gaudy halo. Currently the moon is a milky, off-white colour, but it's definitely going to get bluer as more and more of Hatton's supporters drop in from the skies.

The fun starts later on Tuesday. Both fighters are due to make their so-called ‘Grand Arrivals' in the MGM Grand lobby, where currently a giant golden lion resides in the middle of the boxing ring.

Baffled tourists dutifully waddle up and pose for pictures. A boxing lion? Well, why not - didn't Rocky fight a robot once? Just about anything is possible in this land of farce and fantasy.

Such events are unfailingly chaotic at the best of times. These will likely reach new heights. The lobby will be temporarily transformed into a Manchester suburb with Hatton roared to the rafters while Mayweather is showered with vitriol on what is supposed to be his home turf.

"I'm rooting for the English guy," jabbered our taxi driver tonight, 67-year-old Joyce, before her crazy train of thought somehow careered from the problem with mouthy American boxers into intricate details of her recent urethra tube operation.

Just like Joyce, Hatton has urgent business to tie up. He has taken the sensible option of completing preparations in a rented house a handful of blocks east of the Strip and safely back in something approaching the real world.

Beyond the gaudy reflections, suburban Las Vegas is a gloomy and unsettling affair, where pawn shops and shabby strip joints jostle for space on uneven pavements and anonymous neighbourhoods stretch out in straight streets which eventually peter out into barren desert.

Hatton is shacked up in a two-storey condo with his brother Matthew, who will also fight on the bill, and gym-mate Matthew Macklin, and appears remarkably relaxed ahead of his imminent duel with the best fighter in the world.

So relaxed, in fact, that he did not even quibble when two minivans full of journalists rolled up for a scheduled interview opportunity late on Monday night and promptly emptied his fridge of beer.

Forget all the form guides and tactical intricacies. If Ricky Hatton is prepared to see a couple of crates of booze to disappear, it tells us all we need to know about his desire to upset the odds.

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