Boxing: BLOODY BRILLIANT; WORLD TITLE BOXING: HUGE LEFT EARNS WBA BELT FOR HATTON Barrera salutes classic win for cut-up Hitman.

Byline: Oliver HOLT

THE TOUGH little face of boxing legend Marco Antonio Barrera creased into a happy smile as he gazed up at Ricky Hatton's bloodied countenance on Saturday night.

Hatton was standing on the ropes thanking the Sheffield crowd after he had added another version of the light-welterweight world title to his collection.

VIP guest Barrera, the reigning super-featherweight king, caught Hatton's attention for a second and beat his clenched fist on his chest.

He was telling Hatton he approved of the guts he had shown in pummelling WBA title holder Carlos Maussa into submission at the Hallam Arena.

One champion saluted another before Hatton was spirited away  to hospital to be treated for the gashes that had slashed bloody grooves into both eyebrows.

He had been cut badly above the left eye in the first round and then again above the right eye in the third round, both from accidental head clashes.

Hatton, who has a history of suffering from cuts, did not panic. When he got back to his corner at the end of the first round, he had a brief exchange with his cuts man.

"How is it?" Hatton asked Mick Williamson as he dabbed at the wound with a swab of adrenaline.

"If you're not worried about it, I'm not," Williamson told him. "Anything is salvageable. You can't go blind from a cut."

Williamson deserves an immense amount of credit for his calm and efficient contribution to the eventual ninth-round stoppage.

But Hatton also proved again that he is the real deal as a champion by handling the pressure that has been heaped upon him since his split with promoter Frank Warren.

Saturday's fight was never going to carry quite the same intensity as the IBF title victory over Kostya Tszyu last June that established Hatton as the leading fighter in the division.

But there were many who thought the stress of the fall-out with Warren and the shadow of legal action that hung over the build-up to the fight might have taken its toll.

Hatton attempted to show he had put the split behind him when he played the Wayne Sisters singing Gonna Get Along Without You Now as the prelude to his Blue Moon ringwalk.

But when he was cut so badly in the first, he could have been forgiven for thinking that suddenly everything was going horribly wrong now Warren was no longer by his side.

Instead, Hatton continued his relentless pursuit of the unorthodox Maussa. At first, the Colombian smiled his lopsided grin when Hatton caught him with his left hook.

But the longer the fight went on, the more the grin began to fade. And as the adrenaline began to slow the flow of blood from Hatton's eyes, Maussa's face began to swell under the barrage of Hatton's attacks.

Hatton worked less to the body in this fight and concentrated on booming left hooks over the top of Maussa's defence. Gradually and inexorably, they wore the WBA title holder down.

By the eighth round, Hatton was thundering left hooks into his head almost at will. In the ninth, another clubbing left poleaxed Maussa in his own corner. The Colombian did not make any real attempt to beat Mickey Vann's count.

At the post-fight press conference, Maussa's faces was disfigured by grotesque swelling above both cheekbones.

It is likely to be at least six months before Hatton steps in a ring again. Whoever he faces, it is clear that he is longing to see his name up in lights either in Las Vegas or at Madison Square Garden in New York. Hatton deserves that kind of profile now. He was a dangerous challenger for a long time and on Saturday night he proved he is an accomplished and courageous champion.

The man considered the best pound for pound fighter in the world, Floyd Mayweather, is out there waiting.

The time to face him will come one day. For now, Hatton must be content with a job well done and the admiration of a boxer as savage and noble as Barrera.

CAPTION(S):

MAUSSA TRAP: The big hitter from Colombia rocks Hatton, but it was the unbeaten Mancunian who finished up celebrating; CHEEK THAT OUT CARLOS; RICKY HATTON, watched by Marco Antonio Barrera (inset with Naseem Hamed), stuns Carlos Maussa with yet another big left hook