PRIME Prince Naseem Hamed

The Barrera fight was reasonably close, and Hamed didn't even train for the fight. Incredible.

He hardly trained for Kelley either or most fights between Kelley and Barrera.

Hamed's peak was against Jose Badillo as the chief support to Eubank-Calzaghe. You may say it's convenient he hit his peak pre-HBO, but it's true - by all accounts he pretty much stopped training after the Badillo fight.

Watch the Hamed who fought Belcastro and Robinson - almost impossible to hit, much looser and more relaxed than the tense Hamed of the late 90s/early 00s, faster, and constantly punched in combinations rather than looking for the one big shot as the later Naz would.

He beat Molina four rounds quicker than Morales and six rounds quicker than Marquez and was more dominant in the first round than them. He beat Medina WITH BRONCHITIS!!

 

He was a phenomenon. He was fast, and constantly moving. As nas got older, he became flat footed. I wondered if he hardly trained. I think he was just getting by on skill alone

 

Natural talent alone. He punched from angles we never even knew existed!

15 defences, 14 spectacular knockouts and knocked out all four champions in one division, with only the best chin ever (Wayne M) going 12. Never done before or since and never will be again.

The great Barrera had to completely change his style entirely for Hamed, because he obviously knew the style he had been using all his life (pressure) would result in an early KO loss...

Hamed is grossly underrated.

 

Glass Jawed.

 

Those shots he took from a rejuvenated Kevin K (who had a 7-inch reach advantage and was near the top of the lb4lb ratings a few years before) would've left any other featherweight flat on his back for a minute.

 

Rigo 5'4"/65", Southpaw Bantam, counter puncher, uses KO power for Ring superiority
NAZ 5'4"/65", Southpaw Bantam, counter puncher, uses Ring superiority for KO power

Rigo wants to look like a perfect Gold medalist perfectionist, he intimidates opponents with KO power to enforce a boxing lesson, NAZ does the exact opposite

 

Borderline glass jaw, overrated, can crusher

 

He was one of the most exciting fighters in the last 20 years.

 

He was very good but I think if you really look at his career the writing was on the wall, even early on you could see that Naz made glaring mistakes and got caught with some crazy **** because the lack of defense the Ingle style of fighting had.

The power is what Naz had as the equalizer, but when you get to world level and especially with the elite in that level, you can't have that total disregard for defense and expect to KO everyone, it simply doesn't work that way.

I actually agree with Manny Steward's concerns about Naz, I think it was blatantly apparent that he needed to at least brush up on a few things before he finally stepped up to elite level, it turns out he couldn't make the transition.

Naz was exciting to watch and definitely could have got anyone out of there if they were stupid enough to leave their chin out for him to connect on, but as you find out with most power punchers who start to rely on their power and disregard their skills, they come unstuck and usually in the way of a boxing lesson.

I think if Naz would have carried on he would have been beat and probably KOED a few times, you can't carry on taking shots flush in the way he did and expect to get away with it time and time again. So in a way I think he got out at right time for his health, he had hit the level where fighters were going to give him major league problems, he was struggling to make 126 back then and looked drained like fook, imagine him moving up to 130 and 135 were the likes of Mayweather, Corrales, and Freitas were floating about.

So like many Ingle fighters, they looked great operating at a certain level, but once they stepped up cracks began to show and ultimately when they reached the top level their lack of defense and lack of some of the basic boxing fundamentals were blatant to see.

The mistakes he was making in the Barrera fight were always there to see, it was just that Barrera was smart enough and knowledgeable enough to not get too confident and make the same mistake lesser fighters had made in the past because that's one thing Naz did have and that was world class power, he just lacked in some of the other things.

 

How many top contenders did he fight? :think

 

I don't know where some of the people are claiming he had a glass jaw from, the guy used to get hit flush and a lot of his knock downs were due to him being off balance, Naz could take a dig man.

 

He beat the IBF, WBA, WBC, and WBO champs in his division.


Vazquez held the WBA but got stripped before the Naz fight, and I think Soto had the WBC, Johnson had the IBF, and Robinson had the WBO.

You can't ask much more than that from a fighter, only thing that I can personally pick up on is he and waren promised Marquez a shot and never went through with it, which you could put down to waren but even after Naz left waren he still didn't give Marquez the shot he said he would.

But Naz cleaned up at 126, just so happens all his biggest rivals were at 122 and coming up.


Is there really any need to blank out Frank Waren's name? It's pathetic and a waste of spunk... get it fooking sorted.

 

Naz like Rigo was naturally a small Bantam, his best wins vs 122 guys, Robinson, Tom Johnson, Fading Vasquez & Bungu...126 he was cashing out