Ruthless Royalty: Hamed vs Robinson

Was hard for me to watch that fight as Steve is a friend. Naz totally embarrased him in front of his home crowd

 

Very good analysis. Thanks!

 

The thing with Naz was, he was such a natural athlete that any technical flaws were airbrushed by his natural physical advantages and boxing came easy to him. Too easy, in fact. Had it not, maybe he would have trained harder and been more dedicated, once he'd got to the top, but I guess the sky-high confidence which enabled him to box this way also fed the arrogance which informed him he didn't need to try as hard as the rest.

Fighters with the mentality of Hamed are always at their best reaching for the top and dip once there. They are fed by needing to prove their self-belief was not misplaced - they need others to know how good they are - and once proven, what else is there to do? Keep proving it?

Of course, his hands went but so did his motivation and, in the end, his career while thrilling and successful was partly a disappointment when you consider what it could have been. That said, one of my all-time favourite fighters. And man, that power...


*Great blog btw, enjoyed reading it...

 

Agree other than the 'keep proving' it part. He had major question marks about his standing post MAB and didn't come anywhere near trying to prove he was a good as he said he was.

That was the time for him answer his critics and show what he had against elite opponents and he skulked off into retirement.

 

He'd given up by then and had been on the slide for a while prior. That's my point, he'd got to the top of the first mountain, saw another, bigger, one and didn't have the dedication to climb it. MAB was simply good enough to take advantage of this...

 

Indeed. With hindsight it was prob for the best. He didn't fancy his chances with Morales and would have prob come unstuck with JMM and that little Filipino guy.

 

spot on as soon as naz left the ingles and got his brothers running things he was Finnished started going power mad and forgot every thing else.pity we never saw his true level.

 

Painful to watch. Robinson was outclassed from the start and never got a foothold in the fight.

 

If ever there was a fight which personifies the 'styles make fights' philosophy, this was it.

Robinson was good enough to beat the 99% but, at the elite level, the small gap can become a chasm.

I still cannot fully work out how Naz can stand so square and give up so much mechanical, physiological advantage and still look like counter-punching perfectly is really easy.

As stated in The Art Of War, unorthodoxy is a key tactic to consistent victory and Naz was the GOAT of unorthodox boxing IMO.

 

The problem with Hamed is that, despite his power and talent, he had the boxing IQ of a rock and when he finally stepped up against a great fighter that actually knew how to fight, he was embarrassed and exposed.

 

No. The GOAT of boxing unorthodoxy was Muhammed Ali.

 

Nah, Ali was certainly up there but he never looked like his punch selection was learnt from Street Fighter 2 Turbo Hamed did.