ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - Arturo Gatti was feeling doubly blessed after vanquishing "Jesse" James Leija.

"I won the fight and didn't have to go to the hospital. That's a big plus for me," said Gatti, who put another notch in his WBC 140-pound belt with a convincing fifth-round knockout over Leija on Saturday.

Next up is unbeaten challenger Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who will almost certainly put up a better fight.

Quick and crafty, Mayweather will square off with the brawling Gatti in a June 11 pay-per-view show in Boardwalk Hall, the site of Gatti's triumph over Leija.

Gatti, who made $2 million for the second defense of his WBC title to Leija's $700,000 on Saturday, was unfazed when Mayweather didn't show for a post-fight news conference announcing their fight.

"He's not the one that's going to sell tickets anyway," said Gatti, 32, of Jersey City. "That's the truth."

Indeed, it's Gatti - box-office gold in Atlantic City in recent years - who consistently puts people in the seats at Boardwalk Hall.

His last five fights there have all drawn 11,000 or more, including a sellout crowd of 12,599 on Saturday night.

Mayweather (33-0), a former WBC super featherweight and lightweight champion, has moved up to the 140-pound weight class and is looking for his first title in it.

In his last outing, he stopped Henry Bruseles in the eighth round on Jan. 23 in Miami.

Leija, who is nine years older than Mayweather and six years older than Gatti, couldn't handle Gatti despite a fight plan centered on drawing Gatti into the kind of toe-to-toe fight he often wages.

But Gatti kept his distance in the early rounds, wary of any surprises by the 38-year-old Leija, who said before the fight he hoped to use Gatti's aggressiveness against him.

"He's crafty and I expected the way to beat him was to use the jab," Gatti said. "I stayed on the outside because of his experience. I wanted to stay on the outside. Once I started landing the right hand, that made the difference."