You don't often have the chance to get up close and personal with the best boxer on the planet.

So John Walsh seized the moment in Las Vegas to see what makes the great Floyd Mayweather tick.

Walsh, a freelance journalist from Bradford, was among the ringside media for Mayweather's showdown with Ricky Hatton at the MGM Arena.

And afterwards, Walsh spent nearly an hour in the company of the American champion - longer than the Hitman had managed inside the ring.

He admitted meeting Mayweather at such close quarters proved a real eye-opener.

Walsh said: "He seemed a really nice bloke. He was nothing like the persona you saw during all the build-up to the fight.

"He didn't bad-mouth Hatton at all and really respected what he'd done. Mayweather was completely different to what I'd expected.

"It was funny because there were 20 to 30 press asking questions and then they all drifted away, so there was only about four or five of us left in the room. But Mayweather was still there and obviously wasn't in any kind of hurry to get away.

"In the end, I took the chance to speak one-on-one with him. I thanked him for talking to us for so long and said that he would always have my respect for that.

"I told him that I considered him right up there with the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard as a true legend in boxing and he shook my hand. Then he asked if I'd like to have a picture taken with him - and I wasn't going to say no!"

Boxing enthusiast Walsh had no complaints about the fight itself, though he was surprised with the brutal way it ended.

He said: "I kept changing my mind almost every hour about who was going to win. One minute I was going for Hatton on points, the next it was Mayweather - but I didn't expect him to do it with a stoppage.

"But you can see why he is the best boxer in the world at the moment. He showed that class in and out of the ring."

  • Start or join a debate on this issue in our on-line forum - Click here