RICKY Hatton says he is "gutted" that 10,000 of his fans could be left ticketless in Las Vegas for his showdown with Floyd Mayweather Junior.

American promoters Golden Boy have indicated that they will only release 3,900 tickets for British fight fans, and the Hitman has urged his handlers to do everything in their power to land an increased allocation.

Hatton's own company Punch Promotions estimates that as many as 13,000 fight fans may already have booked flights and accommodation to the desert city for the December 8 clash, and there are fears that the size of the allocation could lead to a black market bonanza.

There is already talk of the £500 seats which make up 70 per cent of the arena going for up to £10,000 for a fight which could cement Hatton as a genuine boxing legend, as he takes on a fighter regarded by many as one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in history.

Hatton learned of the allocation during a brief business trip to Spain, and urged his dad and agent Ray Hatton to do all he could to secure more tickets. In his last appearance in Vegas, in June, Hatton was supported by around 9,000 British fight fans in a crowd of 13,000.

"I have never seen Ricky more gutted than he is about this," said Ray, who is still hoping to get Golden Boy to reconsider the allocation. "We have already asked them if we can send some of the more expensive $1,000 tickets back in exchange for more of the cheaper tickets, but we are still awaiting an answer.

Nightmare

"Ricky has asked us to do whatever it takes to get more of his fans out there, but it isn't that easy, unfortunately.

"It's an absolute nightmare for all of us, because we want to get as many fans out there as possible."

The only response from the American promoters so far is to suggest that a nearby venue could be rigged up with closed circuit TV showing the fight live to 6,000 fans, which would be scant consolation for those left without tickets.

Punch Promotions requested 10,000 tickets but the capacity of the MGM Grand hotel's Garden Theater was originally set at 16,800.

MEN Sport understands that Golden Boy have now reduced that figure to 15,150, a third of which will go to the MGM Grand itself - the casino uses them to entice high-rollers during the fight weekend.

Of the remaining tickets, Golden Boy will keep 2,350 and Mayweather wants 3,900.

Hatton's camp have been warning Golden Boy for some time that demand in Britain would be huge. The Americans were taken aback at the size of Hatton's following in June.

That led to a round of intense negotiations about the venue for the Mayweather fight, which is bound to create much more interest in the US, and at one stage it was being mooted that it could be switched to the bigger Staples Center basketball arena in Los Angeles.

But the MGM Grand won the fight to stage the contest, and now it is feared that it could become a touts' paradise.

Events coordinator Michael Meadowcroft said: "The Americans are saying they want the same kind of atmosphere that the British fans provided at the Thomas and Mack Center in June, but now they appear to have given up on that idea.

"They told us about the closed circuit idea, but we have said that people won't want to fly all the way to Vegas to sit in a picture house."

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Have you been caught up in the ticket fiasco? Contact the sports desk at sport@men-news.co.uk