hamed what if

The latter. Which was the reason he was never going to pursue a rematch, or fight a quality opponent again.

 

Tapia was WBO champ around the time he beat Calvo....would've liked to have seen Naz fight him before he retired

 

Nah mate...Tapia is Barrera's real last name..He has one of those typically long latino names, so he just cut it off by the looks of it.

Tapia was an excellent fighter in his prime at 115 pounds...but by the time he had made it to featherweight he was fading, because of age and his "Vida Loca".

He struggled past Manuel Medina at featherweight and was well beaten by Barrera after that.
I think even a that uninterested version of Naz with the bruised ego would have been to powerful for him...prime Naz would have dealt with him even easier.

 

Agree entirely WhatARock.....just think it would've been a better swansong than that laborious win over Calvo.

 

Hamed was a gifted fighter but he was too confident for his own good sometimes and had a shitty defense. I don't see him beating Marquez and certainly not Pac.
A rematch with Barrera? Can't see that being much different from the first fight.
It's amazing how Hamed seemed to totally deflate after the loss.

 

I think hamed would have a great shot against pac at feather actually. Pac wasn't nearly as versatile there and would be walking in to Hamed's power. I'm not saying Hamed would be a confident pick but I would definitely give him a fair shot at winning that fight.

 

Hamed would not have done too much after the Barrera fight, because he was already losing his reflexes and was becoming easier to hit and I feel he would have struggled against the elite in the division.

However I would give him a better shot at them when he was in his relatively short prime.

 

Hamed had been living the celebrity lifestyle since becoming a 21yo world champion in 1995. He probably regressed from 1995 onwards despite his young age because he had the world (well Britain) at his feet and beating world class opponents was so easy. He has many parralells with Mike Tyson in becoming a young champion so young, knocking out opponents with relative ease, getting acclaim and many many millions so young. He retired with 60-100million in the bank by all accounts

He lost his footwork and combination throwing, skimped on roadwork and only wanted to practise throwing hayemakers. Seriously watch his bantamweight fights to see him throwing combinations and moving more stealthier.

He always relied on athleticism to get away with breaking textbook rules but his mastery of timing, distance and reactions let him get away with this.

Hamed had the potential to be greater than Barrera, Marquez, Pacquaio, Morales. He practically didn't train for MAB, you can watch a documentary following him about playing Playstation, throwing the odd hayemaker and not really training. He really underestimated MAB and thought he was going to KO him easy. Barrera was also a worse stylistic match up than JMM/Pacquaio/Morales, because those 3 would be easier to hit, slower (outside of Pac) and simply not as slick. Despite all this he still beat WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO Featherweight Titlists to unify the division, beat top mean from Bantam and Super Bantam at the age of 27.

A focused Hamed would have been another level type fighter

 

Hamed never had the style to compete with elite fighters. All it took was a straight punch to lay him out. Thats why he was knocked down so much by even fringe contenders. His defense was terrible, and his biggest gift was his tremendous punching power for his size, which got him out of a couple sticky situations.

 

:good:good:good

 

I think your overating Hamed. He was easily knocked down by anyone who could throw a straight punch, and really bailed himself out of a lot of fights with his tremendous punching power. Besides Barrera he never really faced any elite fighters. Wayne Mcullough was probably his second best opponent and that was far from Waynes prime. Hamed was exciting to watch with his snake style and it was effective against the marginal fighters, but I think he even realized himself that style was not going to cut it against the top fighters. Emanuel Steward did his best to try and tighten up his defense and make him more of a traditional boxer puncher, but it didnt work.

 

So your saying champions like MAB/Vasquez Bungu/Soto/McColough/Robinson/ Tom Johnson all couldn't punch straight? Hamed was often down from balance issues and being happy to exchange but he was never down for more than 2seconds. But again all these KDs happened after he fell in love with his power, when he stopped training.

I wonder how closely you followed Hamed's career, but I save and copy and paste this piece for those that havent:

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