Was Prince Neesham another Overrated hype job?

Hamed was an excellent fighter. I hate him for bringing us the modern day ring walk but there is no denying his talent. He beat a host of top notch fighters from Manuel Medina and Tom Johnson to Kevin Kelley and Vuyani Bungu. There is no shame in losing to Barrera, a true all-time great. The Prince's election to the Hall of Fame was well deserved.

 

Barrera was a great fighter, so losing to him isn't the worst thing. I voted Hamed was very good not great. No shame in that.

 

Nah, the Prince was awesome man.

Most of them run into one better at some point as their careers wind down. I know Naz was still in his 20's when he lost but he'd had enough.

 

Defended his title 15 times.

Great fighter.

 

He may've done that with those title thingies but he was not world class, exactly. He was punched several times.

 

Jeez man, that's a tough read. One loss by UD in his career to a legend.

There aren't many who were better than him at Featherweight. He's probably not top 10 all time, but he's not far outside of that.

 

Yeah, but loads of guys punched him before Barrera. In the face.

 

True but none of them beat him.

 

I beat an egg almost every morning, but that does not mean that I am victorious.

 

I rate him fairly highly. Big puncher, unorthodox, entertaining as Hell. He tends to be remembered because of how his career sputtered out. But he had some good - and big wins - before that. And when he was prime he was really dangerous.
I think a lot of Naz's problems were that he fell out of love with the sport quickly. And he was too arrogant to make changes to his style once high end fighters started to figure him out. But, overall, I think he was very good. Perhaps even underrated in some quarters today.

 

Not all of those 15 fighters he defended against had good records.

 

Talented but dreadful fundamentals, his wierd style could only take him so far, any world class fighter would have beaten him and he was not the greatest english fighter of all-time.

 

He was a very good fighter, before Morales and then Barrera moved up to 126 he beat every title holder, Robinson (WBO), Johnson (IBF), Vasquez (WBA) and Soto (WBC). If the sanctioning bodies were as accommodating as they are now, he'd have been undisputed when Barrera moved up to face him.

He deserves to be in the HOF but fell short of being great, while he had the skills he didn't have the mindset, separated from his life long coach, unfocused in his preparation for his biggest fight because clearly the money and fame had changed him. He was probably always a level below Barrera and Morales but he was far from just a hype job, he proved himself world class and was ranked the number 1 featherweight in the world by The Ring from 1997-2000.

 

Agree with this.

Out of interest though. Do you think Hamed would have beaten Barrera if he still had Ingle in his corner?