Mayweather set to Dance with Stars, out box Hatton

Floyd Mayweather takes on Ricky Hatton to defend his WBC welterweight title Dec. 8. John Iacono/SI

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NEW YORK -- I just wanted to ask him one question. Maybe two. But Floyd Mayweather wasn't having it.

"Sports Illustrated?" shouted Mayweather in mock rage when informed by his publicist that I was waiting to talk to him. "What?" As Mayweather approached me in the dining room of Manhattan's Sea Grill, where he had come to promote his next fight, a wide, toothy smile creased the six-time world champion's face. "Come on man," said Mayweather. "When am I gonna get the cover? Last time they put a little picture of me next to Oscar. I want my own cover. I need my own cover."

No promises, Floyd.

However unclear it is when or if Mayweather's mug will grace the cover of the magazine again, it is equally clear that at age 30, Mayweather is the unquestioned face of boxing. "Floyd Mayweather is the greatest fighter to breathe the same air as me," declared Bernard Hopkins.

It's an honor Mayweather (38-0) earned in his defeat of De La Hoya last May and it is a legacy he hopes to add to on Dec. 8, when boxing's pound-for-pound champ takes on Englishman Ricky Hatton (43-0) for Mayweather's WBC welterweight title. "Floyd Mayweather is the face of boxing," said Mayweather. "I'm an A fighter. There are A fighters and B fighters and C fighters. I don't know what Hatton is."

"Who has he beat?" Mayweather continued. "An over-the-hill Kostya Tszyu and (Jose Luis) Castillo. I beat Castillo when he was in his prime over six years ago. And I honestly don't know who Luis Collazo is."

Despite Mayweather's assertions to the contrary, Hatton, the reigning IBF and IBO light welterweight champion, does come into this fight well-credentialed. But the truth is this fight will be as much about Mayweather vs. Mayweather as it is Mayweather vs. Hatton.

Following in the footsteps of Roy Jones, who in 1996 played in a basketball game with the USBL's Jacksonville Barracudas just hours before fighting Eric Lucas, Mayweather has elected to present himself with a host of outside challenges. In addition to reprising his role on HBO's highly successful series 24/7, where cameras tail Mayweather everywhere he goes in the weeks leading up to the fight, Mayweather will also be a contestant on ABC's Dancing With the Stars. "In Floyd Mayweather," said Ross Greenburg, president of HBO Sports. "We have a reality TV star."

And while Mayweather will almost certainly be a hit on prime-time TV (he is a 5-1 favorite to win the competition), how the constant demand for his time will affect his training remains to be seen. (Mayweather says he is working on his dance moves "4-6 hours a day.") Team Mayweather holds pre-fight training camps in Las Vegas, but Mayweather will have to travel to Los Angeles frequently for the taping of the show, which is expected to run until late November. "There will be some days that I will have to do the show in LA and train there afterwards," says Mayweather. "But I can handle it."

"Floyd wants to do the impossible," said Leonard Ellerbe, Mayweather's chief advisor. "We've been working on this for a year and a half. He is in this all the way."

So would a win on Dancing with the Stars, followed by a victory over Hatton, make Mayweather cover material? I'm still not sure, even if Floyd is willing to provide an incentive.

"Tell them that if I get the cover," whispered Mayweather as he walked away. "I'll buy 100,000 copies."