Prince Naseem Hamed

Tom Johnson had him down ? I dont remember that, just remember a systematic beatdown of a past prime but established champion. He wasnt " all over the place " against Kelley either :-( and the war you mentioned against Sanchez he nearly took the guys head off.

 

The sanchez fight was a disgrace everytime he hit sanchez, sanchez went down and the ref never called it

 

I completely agree.
As the competition improved, he was pretty sloppy as he realised he just can't dominate these guys the way he dominated the others due to their lack of skill-set.

He was getting caught enough by Kelley and Sanchez for me to KNOW why he would then lose to Barrera.

This is the case with all of the big punchers in history. The top fighters learn how to deal with big punchers, and they're master textbook technicians so they can take advantage of the technical deficits of other opponents. Big punchers get by on their KO power, and dedicate their craft towards these shots more. The trade-off is less time spent developing and realising faults in boxing skills.

A truly unique fighter for going out there and owning with a style that he randomly had from the age of 7.

 

Hitting the bags/mitts, skipping, sparring,calistenics,lifting all do those things too.

If you want to create stamina for boxing in the later rounds.....well then spar more rounds! Hit the bags longer,etc. That will give you actual functional stamina

Whats the point in running?

Haye does very little running aswell

 

Haye does very little fighting as well to be fair.

 

I was living in York, doing my teacher training, and working in a boozer to supplement my student loan when Hamed fought Barrera. I worked with four fellas, the landlord too, obviously who were casuals. The night of Hamed - Barrera the five of them all bet me twenty quid each that Hamed would win, get the job done. I distinctly remember buying twelve cans of Boddingtons in preparation for the fight, and knowing they would be paid for. I drank through the night pretty much safe in the knowledge Barrera would do the job.

Hamed trained about 20 miles away from my UK residence, and at his peak was ****ing unbelievable, but he fought the wrong fight against MAB. My Dad still has him top ten fighters the British have produced. Him and Chris Eubank he always tells me, and then blinds me with knowledge of fighters I was too young to appreciate, then.

 

You can target certain energy systems specific to boxing with running. You still see Haye doing explosive sprint training.

 

He may mean here from about 7:38 onwards. Nothing was ever counted, though.

http://youtu.be/TD4vmDlil7M

 

You can target those energy systems a lot more by...you know...actually boxing. Hitting bags, pads, shadow boxing. And all the other training you can do in doors.

 

Yes and I would argue that Haye has a tendancy to gas...hence his relatively low output ??? don't understand fighters that don't build a stamina base. yes its not the be all and end all but it should compliement the gym work ??? or maybe that's a bit old school

 

The example of Haye is not a great one, nor is any other Heavyweight in terms of running. Wlad Klitschko doesn't run, you know why? The amount of weight they are carrying, the impact on their joints, etc.

99% of boxers run or do some other type of cardio like swimming or riding a bike. It's a great maintenance workout.

And like I said, Haye still does sprint work.

 

Sprint work is good for explosiveness.True.

I dont see the point of running 5 miles a day though. Its time and energy wasted when you could be in the gym

 

A lot of it is routine as well as mentally, it relaxes some boxers and makes them feel like they have put the work in during a training camp. But like I said, it's also a good way of maintaining fitness and even weight. Conditioning of the legs is very important, running, cycling, etc does this. As training camp progresses, so does the intensity and in comes more boxing specific workouts.

 

I'd certainly dispute Kelley being a "massive puncher". He was a sharp puncher, but no-one is going to confuse him Julian Jackson. Other than the hail-mary against Gainer, there isn't much in the way of impressive knockouts against world-class opposition.

I think talking about how exciting and powerful Hamed was is slightly missing the point. No-one in their right mind would dispute that he was a devastating puncher who was in some very exciting fights.

The posts I took issue with were the ones suggesting that Hamed in his prime was unbeatable, invincible, or would beat Barrera in his prime. His career at world-class level is full of fights where he showed flaws and vulnerabilities against less than great fighters. Against fighters who punched harder than Alicea, Johnson and Medina those defensive lapses could be fight-enders, even with Hamed's good chin. Against fighters with better chins than Kelley would he have been able to turn the fight around?

For the purposes of the Prime Hamed=Invincible debate, it's not a question of whether he was badly hurt against Kelley or had the flu or just a cold against Medina (I forget the official diagnosis). It's what would have happened against HOF-type fighters a level above the Kelleys and Medinas of this world. You've also got to take into account that the best fighters on Hamed's records (Kelley, Medina, Johnson, Vazquez and Bungu) were all past their prime.

People like to push out the myth that Hamed completely dominated his opponents until he lost motivation, declined as a fighter and then lost to Barrera. This revisionist history isn't supported by what actually happened in his fights, which show that from the Alicea fight onwards he struggled more than a supposedly invincible fighter should.

This leaves open the question of when this "prime" version of Hamed that would have beat Barrera and Morales actually existed? Belcastro? Robinson? Badillo? Whichever fight you pick for his prime the issues are that he was showing it against a fighter at least a level or two below Barrera/Morales, and a less-than dominant effort was a fight or two either side.

The argument that he lost motivation and started to decline is only half-true, as apart from a couple of isolated fights he never trained that hard to begin with.

If someone wants to suggest that Hamed had the talent to be the best fighter in the world P4P, I'd probably go along with that. However, he never fulfilled that talent in the ring, at least not in a fight against an opponent where you can gauge that level of ability.

 

Johnson was a faded fighter too. Hamed had some good wins under his belt but he got real lazy at feather.