Naseem Hamed Career Recap

Brilliant wasn't it!!!

 

Maybe - I can see that could have happened, and I agree with your second sentence. If someone doesn't love the sport anymore, then losing the 0 doesn't mean much and I can see how he may have been not taking training seriously for an out (consciously or unconsciously).
Hamed of the late 90s was clearly top level but he just didn't have the will to maintain it for a full career, such a shame. Crazy to think the guy's only 45 now!

 

Think recently naz said his hands we,re shot to bits at the end of his career. He put it down to the reason he retired when he did.

Just dont think his career showed he was good enough to ever beat barrera. Struggled with a shop worn kelley. Had a tough one against medina. If you look back over his career the prime guys he fought we,rent of much note and the decent fighters he faced we,re a bit shop worn. Classic frank warren.

No getting away from the fact he was great...but think the very top guys at the time would have beaten him. He always looked tremendous against guys he was too good for. Cracks started showing when that level went up tho.

Great fighter tho.

 

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He did a lot for British boxing. He had a big personality and was successful with it, a marketing man's dream. Imagine him in today's world, it would be crazy.

Found wanting against the cream of the crop but he still had an amazing career and got a lot of people interested in the sport as he was an entertainer.

 

Not true. When Naz was at his peak, unifying titles, Barrerra was getting whupped twice by Junior Jones.

 

When barrera was getting whipped by junior jones....nazeem was beating said lawel and other equally useless guys. It was the same year he struggled with an ancient medina. Again nothing on naz,s record points to him ever beating barrera. Nazs style looked great up to a certain level....but it got found out against the better guys.

Think barrera had fought something like 30 times in a four or five year period leading up to junior jones. The schedule was always gonna result in him losing to guys he should have probably beating. Junior jones was a very good fighter anyway.

 

He was a great British fighter and proper box office unlike the clowns who came after him we have to shell out for now.

 

Think we need to look at who naz fought. The only real truely world level guys we,re medina, kelley and barrera. Maybe a couple more. In all of them fights naz was exposed to an extent. Barrera beat him hands down. Medina gave him a close hard fight. And kelley could have easily had him out of there. Kelley and medina we,re both over the hill as well. Without these guys who have we got left....steve robinson, wayne mculloch and a bunch of guys that weren,t up to much. Great fighter naz. Just not quite on barreras level.

 

It's anyone's guess what happens if the paths of Hamed and Barrera cross in 97.

I don't think we can say with certainty that Barrera beats Hamed at every point, in the same way I'm not convinced that pre-prime or sub-par versions of Marquez and Morales beat him either.

Conversely, we can't give Hamed any credit for what he may have done in fantasy fights that never happened. A key difference between Hamed and the true greats of the era was that we don't have to speculate what the others would do in elite match-ups, as they proved it one way or the other in ring. If Barrera only had the drubbing in his first fight with Pacquaio on top of bulldozing through the Richie Wentons and Frankie Toledos of this world, people would have a different view on him.

 

Pair of them we,re 34 years olds...with long tough careers behind them. Tom johnson drew with a guy called javier marquez the fight prior to nazeem. Marquez had 20 losses. Frank warren was picking them off at the right time.

Tbf we can do that with most fighters go through their careers and look at it negatively like that. They we,re still good wins and as you said it was how he done it. But looking through his career nothing points to him being able to beat barrera.

Looking exceptional against steve robinson....doesnt always translate to the top level. Again great great fighter naz...who probably did deserve the hype. But barrera, morales etc we,re seriously quality fighters...brought up the hard way. He,d have competed with them but they,d have been a bit too good for him. No shame in that. Just my opinion tho.

 

I think the IBF rule at the time was that if it didn't go 4 completed rounds and it was stopped on an injury, it was a technical draw. I've never seen the fight to be fair, but no-one made a big deal of it in the build up to the fight with Hamed.

Johnson had started to struggle later on in his title reign. I thought he was pretty lucky in the third fight with Medina, but their styles didn't mesh well at all and led to difficult fights to score. He barely scraped past Badillo, getting decked twice in the 11th, but it was apparently all started by a thumb which injured his eye. Beleno had him on the deck in the first 30 seconds, but fair play to Johnson that he came back and stopped him late.

He wasn't a shot fighter by any stretch, but I think he had peaked around 93-94 and it was always going to be a tall order for him to beat Hamed.

Bungu was an excellent win on paper. There weren't any obvious signs of decline in his previous fights, but I think it was one of those bad style match-ups between world-class fighters where Hamed was all wrong for him. Bungu landed early on and barely fazed Hamed, and he wasn't physically strong enough to back Hamed up (Naz' strength was often underrated). Hamed was able to just walk him down, and Bungu couldn't impose that herky-jerky pressure style that seemed to baffle McKinney and others.

I think you've got to give Hamed credit for that fight to be fair, but it doesn't fit in with the narrative that Hamed was well past it when he fought Barrera.

 

Probably true that actually. Never seen the fight either bud. Just seen it on boxrec.