Was Naseem Hamed an ATG or Overrated?

Spot on.

 

Not trying to start an argument, but genuinely curious -- especially since it will probably come up soon:

How do you distinguish Hamed's bizarre technique and blatant technical errors from the 1920s guys?

I ask because unlike Roy or Ali, Hamed was not a one-off anomaly. Hamed's trainer apparently had a whole gym full of guys with oddball technique like his.

EDIT: Changed tense of a word.

 

Excellent. Hamed inspires quite a bit of disdain and worse which leads to him being a bit underdone.

 

I'll take a stab at this, although no one will accuse me of being an expert on the talent or technique of guys fighting in the 1920s. Although the Ingle Gym did produce other quantities besides Naz, notably Herol Graham, most of the rest were ultimately undone by more conventional fighters in their biggest tests.

A notable example would be Junior Witter in his fights with Tim Bradley and Devon Alexander. And Johnny Nelson might have suffered the same problem if his carefully shepharded reign at cruiserweight had culminated in a fight with Wayne Braithwaite or Jean Marc Mormeck. Also, all of Ingle's top fighters were phenomenally talented, physically. That risk-taking style isn't feasible for a man of average athleticism, whereas a guy using a style like Erik Morales' Kangaroo style could do quite well even without extraordinary gifts.

 

he made noise and looked like he could have been ATG and then he just didn't make to that level.

 

So would somebody with gifts like Hamed, Graham, Witter, or Nelson be able to fight like, say, Greb against everybody except the absolute best modern fighters?

 

I think Hamed would have a hard time fighting precisely like Greb, because Hamed always struck me as a guy who was on the extreme end of the fast-twitch muscle fibre scale. Someone like that would exhaust himself trying to use constant pressure. I think his habit of fighting in spurts was due at least in part to an effort to conserve energy, along with tactical reasons.

I think Nelson would do the best of those guys in mimicking Greb since, the word on the street is, he had phenomenal physical strength, to the point that it was stunning for a fighter of his size. That would come in handy for clinch work.

The Ingle brand reminds me most of Jack Johnson, with pot-shotting, hand held low, and head high sliding back defense. Johnson was more refined, but the similarities are there.

 

It's strange how he's been brushed under the carpet. I wasn't a fan of his by a long shot ,but look at boxing mags and the media of the time. He was massive ,totally hyped. But I suppose once the MAB fight was over and done ,then Naz suddenly became seen as just another mouthy ex champ. If he'd made a big comeback and picked up belt's again ,maybe he'd have still been talked about .

 

ATG puncher, but his other attributes were not ATG.

 

Someone recently postage footage of Tony Canzoneri fighting Jackie Kid Berg.
Canzoneri knocked Berg out in the 3rd round and quite a bit of what he was doing reminded me of Hamed.

 

I would say ATG but his undoing was leaving Brendan Ingle who was just the right trainer for him

 

Is there nothing between all time great and overated. I would say naseem was proper world class and could beat anyone in the world but then get to the real legends and he just falls short. There are maybe 5 legends of say beat him everyday and then a few great fighters that he is in 50/50 s with

 

It is hard to say about Hamed. HOF maybe yes. I remember when he said he would knock Barry McGuigan out. Hard to say.