Prince Naseem Hamed: A Career Retrospective

He lost the love and dedication required for this sport before the barerra fight...

 

Hamed always came to fight and tried to entertain. It is amazing to me that guys like BHOP and Winky Wright get so much love when 90% of their fights were boring and in some cases they were ultra negative.

Naz 90% of time was exciting and great to watch so I think people should gve him some more respect.

 

Very nice. Very well written. Hope you continue your boxing journalism because you are a cut above the usual.

Like your thoughts about him doing more for boxing than can be judged in the ring.

I also think you overrate his ability.

 

Nice article.

Loved Hamed, shame he believed his own hype and cocked it all up

 

very good read GH, although just like what heidegger said, you overrated naz ability..still a well thought article though.. nas will always be one of my fave fighters...:good

 

His record is 36-1 not 37-1. I always thought he shoulda fought for a world title at Super Bantam and Super Feather but just just stuck at Featherweight. I mean in about 7 Fights he fought at Bantam then Super Bantam and he only fought at Featherweight due to the fact he was winning a world title off a domestic level fighter.

 

read the whole article here:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,1404039,00.html#article_continue

A prince without a crown
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Sunday February 6, 2005

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[/FONT]The Ponds Forge Arena, Sheffield, one night in May 1994. In only his 12th pro fight, 'Prince' Naseem Hamed, 20, is challenging Vincenzo Belcastro of Italy for the European bantamweight title. There is a fair crowd and all the London boxing writers have made the journey north. Among them are many doubters. This chance has come earlier than expected for Hamed. They have known 'Naz' - or 'the Naz fella', as his unmistakable and incurably optimistic trainer, Brendan Ingle, calls him - since he was a young boy, a diminutive, hyperactive presence hanging on to the robe of Herol 'Bomber' Graham, the most talented but unluckiest boxer Britain has produced. Even in Herol's darkest moments, such as when he was knocked out in a Marbella ballroom by the American puncher Julian Jackson, when on the brink of victory, there was no escaping Naz. There he was, cavorting inappropriately, just minutes after Herol had been taken concussed from the ring. Always in his own world, Naz, ignoring the efforts of another stablemate, the cruiserweight Johnny Nelson, to tell him to calm down. Wherever Ingle went, so did Naz. He is Brendan's masterwork, the boy who will do what the fates conspired to prevent Herol from doing. With Naz, there will be no mistake.

Many of the writers are weary of Brendan's boasts: how Naz will win every major title and earn '40 million quid'. But that's Brendan. He once said Nelson had the talent to beat Mike Tyson, but then rushed him into a cruiserweight title fight against Carlos De Leon. Nelson didn't throw a single punch - perhaps the most embarrassing night at ringside anyone had seen. Could something similar happen tonight? It's entirely possible. Belcastro has mixed with the world's best. Only four fights ago Hamed was in Mansfield boxing Kevin Jenkins, who had won precisely three of his 18 fights.
...
But even if it does blow up in their faces, it won't be the end of the story. For that, you can count on Ingle. At his St Thomas's gym, on the run-down hill on Wincobank, world-class boxers spar among a small band of waifs and strays aged from five to 50. These are the people Ingle invites into the gym, as part of his policy of teaching those seen as society's dregs, through boxing, some 'social skills'. It's a mythic scheme, a romantic pyramid, but one that requires concrete idols at its apex. And here they are, the triumvirate, Herol, Johnny and little Naz. There they always will be, somehow.
At Ponds Forge, Hamed's sizeable family awaits the bell nervously. He is one of nine children. His father, Sal, came to Sheffield from North Yemen in the late 1960s. He worked in the steelworks and then took over the corner shop just up from Ingle's house on Wincobank. His older brother, Riath, thin and studious, and who works at the Yemeni

...

In time, he will split from Ingle and from promoter Frank Warren. He will be managed by brother Riath and promoted by Barry Hearn, the former snooker impresario. Just as his cloak of invincibility seems permanent, he will lose widely on



Jacuzzi and ornate pillars in the Arab style have been installed on the frontage. Opinions vary as to how many boxers use it. Some say six; others, just one - Hamed. While in his time Hamed has paraded in Ferraris and Lamborghinis, he now favours a more discreet Merc. He lives behind security gates with his wife, Eleasha, a local girl, and their two young sons in a £3m house he has just bought near the main fire station. He is said to be considerably above his fighting weight. Nowadays, he seems to speak only through Riath.
When I ask Riath about recent newspaper stories suggesting that his brother was planning to fight again somewhere in the Middle East this summer, probably Dubai, he says, cryptically: 'We're not in the habit of forecasting. We leave our destinies in God's hands. We live a good life now. I'm glad to be out of the boxing environment. No spiritual individual can exist in it. It's an environment of cheating and lying.'
What he doesn't say, emphatically, is no.


Hamed and Riath seemed to have made a clean break from their past life, the life that made them their money. Now it re-intrudes almost as a dream.
And yet, as I'm finishing this article, Riath calls again, to talk about Amir Khan, the boxing sensation from Bolton who won a silver at the Athens Olympics. A rumour has linked the Hameds to Khan. Riath confirms it is true. 'We are talking to Amir. We're advising, if you like. I'm not necessarily looking to promote him. He and his family came to Sheffield and I talked to them. Was Naz involved? Not initially but he has since talked to them several times on the phone.'
Wasn't Warren set to sign Khan to a promotional contract? 'That's why we feel we should give him advice,' Riath adds, archly.
One afternoon in Sheffield I visit the former boxer Glyn Rhodes. He knew Hamed better than most, trained with him at St Thomas's from the day when Sal sent he looked all right, but he'll never come back. All that training in his gym is no good. It's destroying him mentally. He always had that bit of devil in him, that nastiness which you need to be a good fighter. I don't think he should box again. He has to get that something special back that he had as a kid. It's not going to happen.'
Asked if there was a special flaw in Hamed, Rhodes says: 'I think the flaw was in himself. Barrera did for him all right. The sign of a good fighter is when he gets sat on his arse and comes back. I thought Naz was going to be an Ali or a Hagler, but maybe he was just the best of a bad bunch. The Barrera fight was the natural death to his career. Naz was not just a puncher, though. He had very good balance. But like all of us Naz was a bit of a Herol Graham clone. You can't try to be anybody else. All of us tried to be Herol. But it's still a shock. To me, Naz has always been this young kid and now it's all over. What I'd like most of all is to sit down and have a good chat with Naz. But no one can reach him. He's lost to us.'
A couple of miles from Hamed's new gym is where Herol Graham now lives. He answers the door in his tracksuit. He is looking after his two young children. He is in his mid-40s, but looks 10 years younger. The scars of world-title wars with Julian Jackson, Mike 'The Bodysnatcher' McCallum and others are not evident.
Of Hamed, he says: 'It's all mental, not physical. It's all about invincibility. He can't accept it's gone. He fought the wrong fight against Barrera. Barrera beat his mind. Now there's people around him. He doesn't know who to trust. It's all to do with him. But boxing is his glue. He should have come back sooner. If he's going to have a fight now he's got at least a stone and a half to lose. I still text him. I say, "Believe in yourself". But he doesn't believe in himself.'
Once inseparable gym-mates, Hamed and Johnny Nelson no longer talk. No one quite knows why. Some say their rift is to do with an HBO TV date, or with Nelson's refusal to leave Ingle after Hamed did in 1998. In 2003, Nelson's career, which he had manfully resurrected (he is the long-standing World Boxing Organisation cruiserweight champion) was put on hold after he was the subject of kidnap threats. Police put surveillance cameras on his house and on Ingle's Wincobank gym, and suggested a north-west criminal gang was to blame.
After Ingle had departed, Hamed was trained by Manny Steward, the trainer of Lennox Lewis. Steward left after the Barrera fight, disappointed by what he called lapses of professionalism in Hamed's preparation. The Hameds strenuously deny these accusations. Steward's parting shot was: 'Between you and me, he only sparred 12 rounds for Barrera. The kid simply did not want to box.'
A mere three weeks before his comeback fight against Calvo in May 2002, Hamed brought in an old gym-mate from the Ingle days, Dave Caldwell, to train with him. Caldwell was not impressed. 'Naz is all right,' he says now. 'It's his 7gym this afternoon.
He explains the Hamed problem in one quite unexpected word: teeth. 'If you look at the old photographs of Naz, you'll see he has big gaps. One of his teeth was knocked out in the amateurs. Now this goes back to Herol. Herol also had some teeth and she laughed. Now, Herol didn't like it. He went and had a bridge put in. I said, "You're mad. Wait until you've finished boxing".
'Then we're in the Jackson fight. Herol is winning but he's got hit. At the end of the third, all his teeth are in the gumshield. I had to keep them in. I couldn't take them out. But, well, he had to keep his mouth closed. He was knocked out by a right hook.'
His logic may be obscure, but one goes with it. 'So then we're back home and I take the Naz fella up to Herol's place,' Ingle continues. 'I go to Herol, "Well, it happens to all of us". He says, "What does?" I say, "Vanity. I told you not to have that bridge put in". Then I drove the Naz fella back and I've told him, "I've taken you there to teach you a lesson'."
Did he learn it? 'No,' Ingle says. 'He came back with Calvo - and ning. No one can understand why. So I says, "It's obvious. He's had his teeth done like a film star. He doesn't want to get hit in the mouth'."
What happened with Naz - the circumstances of their separation - is still raw for Ingle. 'After he won the title he wanted me to become a

 

Very well written article TGH, very enjoyable read, thanks :good

Naz was an excellent fighter in his time, it's a real shame how things ended for him..

 

Hamed would clean out the current FW division IMHO and with ease.

Him vs Gamboa would probably be very entertaining though.

 

Naz blew it. It didnt have to be the end after the Barerra loss but he just gave up.

 

Gamboa wouldnt stand a chance, hes been on his arse a couple of times already. Hamed would decapitate him.