I was there as well. This was my first experience of boxing psychology. Hamed won the fight at the weigh in.
Hamed was the reason i got into boxing in the first place to be honest. He was one of the few fighters where literally my whole family would sit down and watch him fight, when he was on tv. As a young kid, that was inspirational and I could never understand my mates who called him a dickhead and such. To me, Hamed was ridiculously talented, made boxing look easy and was British. A superb fighter who probably never reached his true peak, but what an entertainer in the ring.
Barrera of '98 was inactive, why would Hamed fight that version? He wasn't marketable again until he fought Morales at the Mandalay Bay in 2000. Any version of Barrera from 2000-2003 would have beaten any version of Hamed.
Can you say that when they only met once? I mean there have been many rematches where the result has been reversed. Having someone's number means beating them each time you meet. An example would be Holyfield/Tyson. Ok there was the disqualification but I bet Holyfield would have still won the second fight.
Why do you say that? Didn't Stevo get called back from his honeymoon to start training or something similar?