The Myth of Prince Naseem

To be honest, I’m utterly sick of all the trash that surrounds this fighter. It seems as if objectivity completely disappears whenever his name is mentioned, and logic takes a flying leap out of the nearest window. I wrote this article on him a while ago, and I tried to remain as unbiased and coldly logical as possible. This is the truth about the guy, the way I see it. Feel free to agree, disagree, whatever.

[FONT=&quot]‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed. This name in itself is enough to immediately provoke either outright disgust or unbridled excitement in virtually any boxing community or amongst casual fans. His ardent supporters continue to insist that he was far past his prime against Barrera, and that he should still go down as an All Time Great, while his vast horde of detractors will sneer at this and declare that he lost against the only 'decent' fighter he ever faced; that he was all hype and no actual substance. As is usual, the truth lies somewhere between these two fanatical extremes.

Not since the notorious (and first black heavyweight champion of the world) Jack Johnson and the brash, swaggering Cassius Clay had there been such a polarizing figure in the

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, a figure arrogant enough to put Narcissus himself to shame. Where most boxers slipped through the ropes of the ring quietly to make their entrance, Hamed would somersault artfully over the top rope, often to land directly into a playful hop-skip or dance like a crazed jester, confidence dripping from his every pore. Whereas men such as 'Sugar' Ray Leonard had made use of taunting to devastating effect in the ring before -- the classic 'No Mas' fight being the prime example here -- Hamed took it to an entirely new level, at times actually dancing carelessly while clinching or fighting, or standing over a fallen opponent to gloat or wiggle his upper-body insultingly, daring the man to get up and take more punishment. Like the present Mayweather Jr, Hamed also declared that he was not only going to be a legend, but the greatest of all time in the sport, placing himself above the likes of both Ali and Leonard. Of course, even his most ardent of supporters would have to admit that this never came to fruition, but there was no denying his talent. He was as fast as a cat, especially at bantamweight, had the lightning reflexes to lean or sway away from chains of punches rather than parry/guard them, and could hit with what can only be described as frightening power from the strangest of angles, knocking out 31 of the 36 opponents that he defeated in brutal fashion. His southpaw stance was troubling enough for orthodox boxers, but his bewildering boxing style -- what can best be described, perhaps, as a furiously aggressive and flashy limbo-dancer -- often left many of them frustrated and then shortly afterwards flat on their backs from a punch they had never seen coming.

Where did it all go wrong?

I would wager that it began to go downhill just before he separated from his long-term trainer, Brendan Ingle. The two, before the eventual split, were close enough to be almost like family, and Ingle was never reluctant to repeat the tale of how he had first discovered Hamed as a child, fighting off three bigger boys on the school playground. Most importantly, however, is the fact that Ingle had taught Hamed how to channel his immense raw talent into a solidified style, albeit a highly unorthodox and wild one. When Hamed began training under Emanuel Steward and Oscar Suarez, it's arguable that they tried to tinker with the style he had used all of his life just a little too much, and taken him away from his roots and what he felt most comfortable with. To be fair, though, much of the blame must also rest on Hamed's own shoulders for growing more and more in love with his own power, abandoning combination punching and slick skills in favour of big, single shots that aimed to close the show in an instant rather than technically take the other man apart as he had done at the start of his career. By the time of the Kelley fight, this growing flaw was clearly in evidence, and Hamed paid the price, being caught off balance and being knocked down more than once before managing to salvage a victory only through his devastating power and sturdy chin. There was clear evidence of his reflexes and speed slowly but surely eroding, making the man who had once been as elusive as Herol Graham suddenly vulnerable and knocked down again and again, against fighters like Alicea and Sanchez. These knockdowns were often a sign of him being caught off balance rather than really hurt -- flash knockdowns, in a sense -- but the point is that they were finding him, and the same punches that he may have easily swayed or away from under a few years beforehand were now landing flush on his head. There is, of course, also his gradual step-up in class to consider -- good fighters such as Kelley would naturally be faster, more accurate and more skillful than previous opponents, and thus would find him easier to hit with punches: this should not be, however, the central factor attributed to Hamed's downfall, as many of his detractors make it out to be. It's clear that the Hamed of the Kelley and Sanchez fights, for example, bears little resemblance to the young man that flipped over the ropes in Cardiff and utterly outclassed a defensive Steve Robinson to become Britain's youngest world champion in what was most likely his most impressive display in the ring. Rather than a single factor, it was all of the above factors that contributed to his loss and subsequent disappearance from the spot.

On the night of the Barrera fight, Hamed looked like an amateur against a real professional -- he was caught with crisp combinations, staggered at points, clinically outboxed and taken out of the fight with a very sharp Barrera who stuck to the fundamentals of the game well. Perhaps most telling of all, his attempts to intimidate Barrera through taunting or grabbing him in a headlock were to no avail, and only served to make the Mexican even more determined to teach him a lesson. The fight may have been shocking to some -- as Hamed was the favourite with the general public, going into the bout -- but I personally would say that it was merely the last of a long line of nails that had been hammered into the coffin of the Prince, as holes in his armour had been appearing, as mentioned before, with increasing frequency for a long while beforehand. The fact that Hamed only fought one more time before retiring would point at his realization at this unfortunate fact -- not only were his physical skills not at the point they had once been at, but his mental state was shattered by the Barrera defeat, his shroud of invincibility stripped away unceremoniously. Without that swagger, without the concrete self-belief in his power to overcome any other man in his weight class, Hamed was broken, a bird with one wing.
As the late Floyd Patterson (R.I.P) once stated on the subject of losing:

'A prizefighter who gets knocked out or is badly outclassed suffers in a way he will never forget. He is beaten under the bright lights in front of thousands of witnesses who curse him and spit at him…the losing fighter loses more than just his pride and the fight; he loses part of his future. He is one step closer to the slum he came from.'

-- 'King of the World', David Remnick

The above is perhaps the best reason why Hamed will never return to the sport -- and even if he did muster the willpower to do so, his physical skills would be too far deteriorated for him to ever come close to regaining his former standing and competition level.

What did he leave behind, then? What legacy remains for us to evaluate? Well, far more than most will credit him for, to be completely honest. Hamed was the youngest world champion in British history, certainly one of the hardest hitters in the history of the featherweight division, and would have been the first boxer to hold all four world titles in a division if Vazquez not been oddly stripped by the World Boxing Association of his belt at the time. He ranks, for many, as one of the most entertaining and charismatic fighters ever to grace the sport, and he brought a massive amount of attention back to the lower weight classes, which are (even today) often disregarded by the casual fan in favor of the heavyweights. He retired with a record of 37 fights, 36 wins, and 31 of those wins coming by way of knockout, only losing once to an All Time Great in the figure of Barrera via points. His clash with Kelley is normally cited by fans as one of the most exciting featherweight bouts of all time.

That doesn't seem to be too bad at all.

He won't ever be recognized as the legend he wanted to be, much less the greatest boxer ever -- a legend is someone who comes back from a loss bigger and better, and a great fighter is one who beats other great fighters. He failed to do either of these things. His achievements, however, cannot be denied either -- at the end of the day I believe Hamed will go down as a hugely talented and yet ultimately flawed fighter, a figure that incites as much hate as affection, and a personality that transcended the sport and brought it both much needed excitement and drama for the short time he was here.

The Prince never managed to become The King, but he left his unique, entertaining mark on the sport, and I suspect that it will never be fully washed away or obscured. [/FONT]