Naseem Hamed Career Recap

WBO champ for 5 years, IBF champion, WBC champion, beat the WBA champ to be lineal champ for 3 years.
His lifestyle caught up with him and he lost to Barrerra, but let's not rewrite history.

 

Im not he crumble when hitting the top barr
He could not intimidate barrera he knew he was fhooked hence the come back against average fie then called it a day
He knew the real elite were hard hard fights hed probably lose and his ego couldnt handle it
I leave the rewriting history to fan boys
Hammed meet marco and mentally folded

 

I’m not aware of there being any serious dispute about Hamed fighting Medina with a cold. He sounded terrible after the fight, unless that was his work sickie phone-in voice.

It’s accounted for in the biographies on Hamed, and apparently Ingle gave him a rollicking after the fight for not pulling out.

He took punches from much harder hitters than Medina - Kelley, Vazquez and Barrera all hit him flush and he got through it. Hamed’s chin was fine; his balance was a liability though due to his fighting style which led to multiple knockdowns.

Hamed had a lengthy reign, effectively unified the belts, and dominated most his opponents. The lack of a defining win on his record, and getting soundly beaten when he did fight the best, mean that he can’t be ranked amongst the elite of the featherweight division.

There isn’t a credible argument to put him up there with Pep, Saddler, Sanchez, Saldivar etc. Probably somewhere between 11-20 is realistic, which isn’t bad when all is said and done.

 

He really needed an authority figure in his family to slap him up. I think Ingle tried and Naz's ego caused the bust up.

People might say lack of focus and bad camp were an excuse, but it's all documented in that documentary called the little prince.

He should have been in sheffield grinding day in day out, but he was dossing around with his hangers on.

 

Last seen raging following the Eubanks v Groves fight when he done his nuts backing Eubanks - full seething mode claiming Eubanks should retire.

That rant was full Tony Hayers and made my day.

 

I think with punch resistance you have to look at a whole career to get an accurate reflection. There have been notably durable fighters who at certain points in their career were regarded as "chinny" - Ali is the most obvious example, but off the top of my head you can include De La Hoya and Whitaker as well.

I wouldn't put Hamed in the same class of chin as those guys, but when you look at it objectively across a whole career the numbers speak for themselves. He had 37 pro fights across a 10 year career, and he started fighting world-level opposition two years in. He had 17 world title fights, and only three of them (Lawal, Molina and Cabrera) didn't fit into the category of world titlist or top 10 contender. Several of the guys he fought had reputations as punchers - Badillo, Kelley, Vazquez, Sanchez and Barrera. A common criticism of Hamed was that he left himself wide open to counters when he lunged in, and judging by the number of knockdowns he suffered plenty of people managed to tag him.

Despite all this, he was never stopped in his career, and never appeared badly hurt except in the Kelley fight. Even then, his chin effectively passed the test. Give or take a few knockdowns either side, the narrative of the fight was 1) Kelley hits Hamed...Hamed goes down, 2) Hamed hits Kelley...Kelley stays down. With virtually all of Hamed's knockdowns, he was up standing before the ref could pick up the count.

If you have a fighter who regularly fought hard-hitting, world-class opposition, was frequently tagged and had an iffy chin, at some point they are going to get flattened. Hamed never did, so some part of that equation doesn't stack up, and the obvious one is that his chin wasn't too bad.

I'm not big on sparring anecdotes as evidence, but the word from the Ingle camp was that Hamed frequently sparred heavier guys, and took plenty of licks without complaining (I'm not sure how much was head sparring to be fair). There was a story doing the rounds about him getting dropped by a domestic heavyweight in sparring, bouncing straight back up and giving him a beating. Whatever the truth of the matter, I don't think there were any concerns in the camp at any point that Hamed was chinny.

 

I loved Prince Nasem. He was one of the first fighters I remember getting excited to watch, my dad was also a big fan. He was so entertaining, his ring walks were EPIC and to a young lad like me he seemed unbeatable! I remember trying to impersonate him when I was shadow boxing and that lol.

Will never forget his fight with Barrera...I was gutted. Barrera was a completely different animal, he completely burst Hameds bubble.

He is a legend tho, been no one like him since and probably never will. Will always look back at that time with fond memories.

 

Is he still with his mrs? She seemed way out of his league and likely to ditch him after retirement like Hatton’s bird did.

 

Hamed was a great fighter. A little behind the likes of Barrera and Morales but well up there. Don’t think he had a dodgy chin, just open to being hit while off balance. Was the man in the division for a longtime, a proper world champion.

A British ATG. One of the best British fighters of my lifetime.

 

Great fighter and had some solid victories but he’s a level or two below your Morales, Pacquaio, Barrerra and Marquez’ of the game.

I’ve no doubt all the above would have beaten him as would Lomachenko.

 

Agreed. If he fought peak versions of Morales, Marquez or Pacquaio he may not have heard the final bell.

The frustrating thing with Hamed is that if he had fought Morales around the time of the Chi fight, or Marquez of the Norwood fight, he would have had a pretty decent chance of winning.

As it is, the Fab Four fought more than a dozen times between themselves, cementing their legacies. Hamed just has the humbling by Barrera.

 

Throughout all the posturing and posing the only thing special about him was his power, it was off the scale.
Other than that he was simply riddled with bad habits, and got exposed the higher calibre of fighter he faced.

 

Hamed was a ****.. But he was a talented ****... And there is no way he has a bad chin... Every shot that ever floored him or rocked him he was always moving backwards bent at about 65 degrees.. He's gonna look hurt by any shot that hits him... But his chin was Iron.. The fact alone he never was koed despite the way he took shots.. Especially later on his career.

I honestly can't wait for the next time we have a British boxer comes along with half the talent of naz and just as big a punch.. He was a devastating hitter... No shame falling short against barrera