is prince naseem the most underated fighter?

18 8 Tommy Parks dropped him. He drew with bantamweight Bones Adams. Those fights were before Hamed as well.

 

Thinking about it, I think somewhere in that 20-30 range is fair. Perhaps anything higher or lower isn’t quite right.

 

Fair comment.

 

Did you just confess to being on boxing forums for 20+ years?

 

No

 

I guess he was a household name in England. Not even close in the U.S.

 

Absolutely. There was a time that Naz was the most well known boxer in the world, amongst the kids at school. No question his profile was disproportionate to his achievements.

 

At one point he was the highest paid fighter in teh world, outside of Evander Holyfield.

A work colleague met him at the hajj, and asked why he retired when he did.

He answered that he simply didn't need the money anymore.

If you were in the UK during his career, you would know that he was a household name.

If nothing else, he should be remembered for his star quality.

 

Achieved more fame than his accomplishments demanded due to his charisma both inside and outside the ring, but the level of his opposition was modest at best really until he came up against MAB. No shame in losing to MAB, but fading into abject obscurity afterwards despite still being a relatively young man will always hurt his legacy. Fighters have sustained brutal losses and redeemed themselves soon afterwards, including MAB himself on more than one occasion, but Hamed couldn't seem to recover from losing his perceived invincibility. That hurts him.

MAB got there first, but it could have just as easily have been any one of JMM, EM, or Pac that delivered Hamed's first loss. He simply wasn't in their class.

 

I seriously doubt that Naz was getting checks like Tyson and Oscar.

 

People in the UK, whos knew nothing about boxing, were following his career.

He was a household name.

Like Frank Bruno, he was valued/followed beyond his accomplishments.

 

Naseem Hamed vs Kevin Kelly makes the cut as one of the many best slugfest of all time. After Nas was dropped 3 times he comes back knocking down Kelley for his 3rd time and wins by KO. Great fight!

 

But I don't know when Holyfield was a bigger draw than Oscar or Tyson.

Hamed's highest purse was 8.5 million for Barerra. Oscar and Tyson doubled that on more than one occasion.

 

There were hidden benefits back then, for a British contender who could fight at world level, or even one that could only pretend to fight at world level.

Just look at the hype surrounding Bruno.

The same was true of Hammed, except that he was backing it up.

 

Claiming he was the second highest paid guy in the sport is highly questionable regardless.