Former two division world champion Ricky Hatton believes that he could have done a lot more back in December of 2007, when he traveled to Las Vegas to stake his undefeated record against WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather at the MGM Grand.

Mayweather would drop and stop Hatton in the tenth round to retain his world title.

When reflecting back on that fight, Hatton is still annoyed with the officiating.

He believes referee Joe Cortez prevented him from fighting on the inside.

Hatton says he was able to get on the inside often enough, but claims that as soon as he got close - Cortez would then break them up to create space.

To prepare for the fight, Hatton studied Mayweather's first bout with Jose Luis Castillo, who used inside fighting to take Mayweather to the limit.

He claims Cortez would not allow him to apply the same strategy.

“I did give him a good run for his money. I feel a little bit cheated to be honest with you, because I felt that I wasn’t going to outbox him and I wasn’t going to out-speed him, but if I was allowed to get close I would definitely throw more punches than him. I never got the opportunity and that’s the thing that will always eat away at me – the referee never gave me the opportunity," Hatton explained to BT Sport.

“The one person that was allowed to get stuck in and bully him and was allowed to fight close was Marcos Maidana and he pushed him really close. Castillo was allowed to get close and a lot of people thought Castillo won, so I smelt a rat that night with the referee and I don’t think I was given a fair crack of the whip.”