Opinions on Prince Naseem Hamed

find it hard assessing him. from all accounts he was focused and training in his early 20s and he looked indestructible in his fights. but this was against slower 2nd tier champs like robinson and medina.
when he was starting to step up his competition, this also happened to be the time he stepped down in focus and training.
in "license to thrill" he talked barrera and morales, but particularly barrera with unusual respect. yet he doesn't train that hard for him. i read this (with the benefit of hindsight:good) as meaning he knew he'd get beaten.

 

Back then, I wasn't too big on Nas. His cockyness, and the fact that he seemed to be missing some fundamentals on boxing was off-putting. He did alot of boxing cardinal sins - bending his head back to avoid a power punch, ducking to the side, etc.

That said, he and Roy Jones Jr.were the most naturally gifted boxers of their time. He hits very hard, and his chin was solid - most of his knockdowns seemed to be balance issues. Also, his unorthodox style, while flawed, was very different - but it wasn't too long until it was figured out by the likes of Kevin Kelly, and later more successfully by Barrera.

Now with the years he's been away, I can honestly say I miss the guy, and hope someone like him comes along. He's not an ATG, and probably not even an Hall of famer, but he was at the top of the FW division for a good amount of time, and perhaps his true legacy is bringing some spotlight on the lighter guys that hasn't been seen before. BTW, I found the trash talking between he and Kelly to be freaking hilarious:

http://www.youtube.com/user/filipenis96#play/all/favorites-all/0/cQ69MyiNOe4

 

Hamed was a phenomenon.

In my opinion, a great fighter that never actually proved his greatness.

His accomplishments were significant; three world titles, unifying the division, establishing lineage, youngest British World Champ ever etc.

Took on, and beat, good competition throughout his career (fought Belcastro for a European title in only his 11th fight).

His resume is packed with solid wins, over good/very opponents.

Overall, great for boxing, a plethora of highly entertaining fights, and a showman that brought a lot of people into the sport.

 

Great talent, great power, great speed and movement.

Shitty balance, complete lack of fundamentals, not a lot of focus on the game.

I wasn't that impressed by Naz back in the day. The first time I saw him was the Medina fight and I thought there was something big there, so I kinda wanted to be impressed when he was being brought along by HBO and others, but he just left me cold. The ring entrances were overdone and too long for my taste, his in ring showmanship was often undermined by his poor balance so he would sometimes make what should have been really impressive feats look bad because he'd be slipping and falling everywhere, and when an aging Kevin Kelly made him fight for his life I figured it wouldn't be long before someone took him down.

Definitely a case of a guy who was given great tools but didn't fully utilize them, and his performances from about 98 onward really take away from the luster of his earlier career and show that he was going to fall apart except when kept on a tight leash by trainers and such.

So, a very good fighter overly reliant on natural talents who didn't develop them properlyl. Definitely not great.

 

Undeniably, back in the day, "Ears" was one of my favorite fighters. His lack of conventional fundamentals, combined with his God-given athleticism and cocky nature made for pure ring entertainment. For me, it was always about "who and when" as it was clear that a solid, well-founded if less endowed technician would one day disrobe him. I'd say that he began to look more and more ordinary starting around 1998, as somebody mentioned earlier.

When I saw MAB disassemble Jesus Salud in 2000 and heard he was the next scheduled opponent for "Ears", I knew that the magic carpet ride was all but over. MAB had managed to regain his timing and confidence and the Salud match underlined it. Hamed was in no way capable of beating such a well-rounded fighter, save for some lucky punch.

 

That's quite a long bow you draw comparing Tyson ditching Rooney for pills like Aaron Snowell and Jay Bright with Hamed ditching Brendan Ingle for HOF trainer Manny Steward.

For what it's worth I think Hamed could've had Steward,Futch,Blackburn and Benton in his corner at the end and it wouldn't have made a jot of difference. Hamed had fallen in love with scoring one punch KO's and couldn't/wouldn't use his natural speed,elusiveness and angles (not to mention patience) to wait and set them up anymore.

Plus he was an arrogant creep who thought that the rules of boxing didn't apply to him and refused to listen to anyone except his suckhole friends and family.

 

Me agreeing with you doesn´t happen too often. Despite the truth of what you said I don´t think Hamed is one of the elite. A very good and especially dangerous fighter but he lacks the deepth in resume to be ranked up there.
Funt to watch though.

 

showed no resolve after loss to barrera wich will always leave ? looming over head berrera himself showed that same resolve im refering to after poision junior jones losses were if he didnt we would not refer to him as the legendary marco antonio berrera that being said talent never issue but all other qualities missing by premature departure from sport so his ranking among feather weights will never be as lofty as could have been

 

Pretty much sums it up for me.

 

Yep.

I think one of the main reasons for the split with ingle was he stopped listening to him and got very slack when it came to training. There were probably other reasons too we dont know about.

Also I dont think Steward was right for him tbh. Well maybe nobody would have been right for him at that point but I think that the absolute 100% focus should have been on footwork and movement and making Naz elusive again but it seemd he tried to c hange his style of attack more, trying to get him to shorten up his punches and not be so wild which probably was a decent idea but far from the most neccessary change that needed to be made.

 

When a guy has phenomenal speed, power and a rock solid chin he has a shot at beating anybody on any given day. That's Hamed. ATG in terms of top 100? Heh. Nah. ATG in terms of you have to talk about him eventually, yeah. He will go into the HOF eventually whether anyone likes it or not, I think. You really do have to talk about him at some point.

I didn't particularly like him when he was around and didn't know what to make of him but with the benefit of hindsight I've found an appreciation. You could say 'He could've been better but he wasn't serious enough' because he was certainly a friggin' clown. But I'm not sure he could've stayed around much longer which is why I don't fault him for rebounding after the loss much. I think he had terrible hand trouble and he'd already been at the top for quite a while. I don't think he could've gone Calzaghe and adopted a slapping style to save his hands either. You could argue he was great, you could argue he wasn't. He's a borderline guy, I think. I don't think it's unreasonable to go either we with him.

 

One of the best examples of how far extraordinary punching power can take you with little technical skills. As said, his shortcomings were so apparent even against the most limited of opposition.

 

Hamed basically based his whole style on Herol Graham, the most sucessful fighter in his gym when he as growing up.

However he only really seemed to master the more flashy unorthdox upperbody elements and his overall fundamentals made the Ali influenced, technically flawed Graham look like a 100% textbook master in comparison...naseem really only made it work with his athletic talent and huge power.

He was a caricature of a fighter.It's a shame he wasn't around the gym with the great technical British fighterd like Buchanan, Winstone etc then you might have got a great fighter.He certainly had the physical tools to be an absolute beast had he learned to fight properly.

 

Agreed about Hamed basing his style on Graham, the whole Wincobank gym followed his style. In the beggining Naz used much of Grahams footwork and movement, when he got to his peak he abandoned it and became flat footed. If Hamed took Graham up on his offer of being Hameds trainer he'd have been far better.

Graham did things in the ring that Buchanan and Winstone didnt have the creativity to dream about. He was a special fighter in my view, with some of the best head movement and footwork I've seen. He was avoided, and only got his chance against 2 of avoided greats in Kalambay and McCallum and arguably beat them both. I think all 3 beat the Hagler of 86-7