Brothers in arms

This is the question: Is Lovemore N'Dou right? Is Matthew Hatton, the younger (and only) brother of the former world champion Ricky Hatton, a donkey that thinks it is a racehorse?

I have set them a test. They are sitting in separate rooms answering the same question: what is your most vivid childhood memory of your brother?

Ricky: "I remember one time I had an argument with mum. She was telling me off and I said, 'Right! I'm leaving home. I'm packing me bags' and mum is like 'Go on then, pack your bags, get going.' I walk out the door and Matthew comes running after me. I was only about nine at the time so he would have been six. He said, 'Richard' and I thought he was going to say, 'Don't go' but he says, 'Can I have your bike?' "

Matthew: "My most vivid childhood memory of Richard? I'll have to think about that. No, this stands out . . . he was about nine and I was about six and he fell out with mum and dad and decided he was going to leave home. As he was going, I came to the front door to shout at him, 'Rick! Rick!' And he looks back to see what I want and I say, 'Can I have your bike?' "

I laugh and shake my head.

"What? Is that what he said?" he smiles.

That proves it surely? Lovemore N'Dou has it wrong. We're dealing with matching DNA here, two fighting thoroughbreds, but wait! What about the differences? Didn't their mother say that Ricky was a forceps delivery?

Didn't their father say that Matthew has more discipline? Doesn't everybody say Matthew is the spit of Ray and Ricky is the essence of Carol? And what about that scurrilous rumour that Matthew is a United fan! I have set them another test. They are sitting in separate rooms describing their concept of a perfect day . . .

Matthew: "I get up in the morning and start off with a full English breakfast, spend some time with my little boy and take him out somewhere with my girlfriend to have something to eat. Then I'll meet my pals later on for a few beers."

Ricky: "I get up in the morning and have a full English breakfast and then I spend the afternoon with my friends watching Manchester City beat Manchester United 6-0. I walk from the City of Manchester stadium to the MEN Arena and I then fight the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world and knock him out in the first round. Then I go out celebrating and get pissed as a fart."

And the three people they would most like to have dinner with?

Ricky: "Ozzy Osborne, because I have a bit of a wild side and I bet he has some stories to tell. Muhammad Ali because he was the greatest of all time, but when he was healthy and still had the gift of the gab. Nelson Mandela, because he went to prison for all those years and just came out and forgave everyone - and you're some man if you can do that."

Matthew: "Ricky Gervais, who is somebody I really like, comedy wise. Sugar Ray Leonard was my sporting idol and my favourite fighter of all time. And I don't know who my third would be. I suppose I'll get in trouble if I choose a bird. Okay, Kelly Brooke, because if the conversation wasn't good there would be something nice to look at."

Maybe they are not so similar after all.

"Matthew is more of a thinker. Richard doesn't give a monkeys and I think that shows in the way they both fight," Carol Hatton observes. "Richard will take 20 punches to get one punch in but Matthew is more of a . . . he doesn't have the same aggressive style. I wish Richard had Matthew's defence and I wish Matthew had Richard's offence."

It's a Wednesday afternoon at the Hatton Health and Fitness Gym in Hyde. Matthew Hatton is resting on a table in the physio room, retracing the path of a life we have travelled before. We've met his parents, Ray and Carol, many times. We know about his boyhood in Hyde, his passion for football and those mega English breakfasts at The Butty Box on Mottram Road. The carpet laying sounds familiar and his former trainer, Billy Graham, rings a bell. It's just the name that doesn't fit.

"Matthew Hatton? He's a boxer? No, never heard of him." He has been a boxer for nine years now and fought 42 times since September 2000, when he made his professional debut on the undercard of his brother's 21st fight (and win) against an Italian, Giuseppe Lauri, in London. Matthew has lost four of those bouts and is ranked fifth of the British welterweights but believes he has made significant progress in the past 18 months under a new trainer, Lee Beard. "When you look at my record I've had four defeats," he says, "but I only feel I've been legitimately beaten once and that was against Craig Watson last year. I don't blame anyone but myself for that but I wasted a lot of years training with Ricky at Billy Graham's gym. I enjoyed training with Ricky but Billy was doing nothing with me. I was almost training myself.

"So after the Watson defeat I thought, 'I'm going nowhere here. I've got to do something for myself now' and I left the gym and joined Lee Beard. I've had four good wins since the move and feel my career is just starting."

"At what stage did you accept that you did not have your brother's talent?" I ask.

"I've never accepted that because I don't look at it like that," he says. "I look at the other fighters in my weight division at my level - they are the only fighters I concentrate on. Ricky is a fantastic fighter but I just focus on my own boxing and the other fighters in my division."

"But you've sparred with Ricky many times," I counter. "So it wouldn't be natural if you didn't get a sense during those sessions whether you could beat him or not?"

"Again, it's nothing I have ever thought about," he insists. "When I turned professional Ricky had 21 wins, was knocking on the door of a British title fight and was far more advanced than me, so to think that I could go in there and hold my own with him having only just turned professional would be silly.

"Early on, I used to spar with him and he would give me a few good hidings and that was the case with a lot of the fighters in the gym, because a lot of Billy Graham's fighters were championship-level fighters, and a kid making his debut doesn't go in there and start knocking lumps out of champions. But I got better and better over the years. I sparred with Ricky before the Paulie Malignaggi fight in November 2008 and did very well but I don't look at it as a contest. I just try and box to the best of my ability."

While sparring with his brother has been hard on his ego and left him sore, it has also brought rewards, including the opportunity to fight at some of sport's great arenas. He was there in Manchester the night Ricky beat Kostya Tszyu to claim the IBF welterweight title. He was there in Boston the night Ricky beat Luis Collazo to claim the WBA welterweight title. He was there in Las Vegas the night Ricky knocked out Jose Luis Castillo to retain the IB0 light-welterweight title. And he was there in Las Vegas when the kingdom came tumbling down against Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao.

"Every time Ricky stepped into the ring I thought he would win," he says. "If he had stepped into the ring with King Kong, I'd have said he'd have beaten him because I had seen him do it so many times, from smashing kids as an amateur to going all the way through the professional division. I thought he would beat Mayweather, and seeing him knocked out like that was absolutely awful." And Pacquiao? "I'd seen Ricky in his training camp and I knew his preparation wasn't right. I knew mentally he wasn't right so I was more hopeful than expectant of him winning that fight, but the manner of his defeat, I never expected that. To see him knocked out in that manner, I felt sick."

Six months have passed since the defeat by Pacquiao and the spotlight has shifted to the younger Hatton as Ricky ponders retirement. Matthew will step into the ring against Lovemore N'Dou, the IBO welterweight champion, on Friday at the Fenton Manor sports complex in Staffordshire. The bookies don't fancy him, the critics say he's out of his depth and Lovemore has labelled him a donkey. Hatton is undeterred.

"This shot has come out of the blue for me but I have to make the most of it. The last time I looked I was a 4-1 underdog, which is big in boxing, but this will be a coming-out party for me. I look at the internet sometimes and you get these armchair critics sat at home in front of their laptops asking, 'What's he doing here?' but I'm not going to let them bother me."

And this is not uncharted territory for his family. "He's not just my brother, he's my best friend," Ricky says. "We do everything together. He has never been the jealous type and has always supported me. He has told me on many occasions that I'm his inspiration, which is nice to hear from your brother, but I am sure there have been plenty of times when he has been sick of hearing 'Ricky this' and 'Ricky that.' And I'm sure he has thought at times, 'I just want my moment'. Well this is it. His moment has come. And I genuinely believe he'll win it."