The Prince and the Assassin
Examining the legacy of Naz and the night it all went pear shaped
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For some reason, Naseem Hamed has been on my mind a fair amount recently. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that his specific significance to boxing, especially in Britain, hasn’t really been replicated since. Or it could be that, despite many disliking the obnoxious ‘Prince’ character, I don’t think there would be many boxing fans who will disagree that the sport misses supremely charismatic fighters like him in the modern game. It also might be that this week is the anniversary of Hamed’s biggest, and most disappointing, night.
Last year, on the twentieth anniversary of Hamed’s clash with Marco Antonio Barrera, I contributed a piece to The 13th Round on this very subject, an updated version of which makes up the main body of this edition. There’s also the usual thoughts on the recent news agenda and previews for the next couple of weeks.
For now, though, we go back to the early life of Naz, how he ended up headlining on HBO pay-per-view, and the prince’s planned Vegas coronation that never was…
When Prince Naseem fell off his throne
THE LONG READ
On April 7th, 2001, ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed and ‘The Babyfaced Assassin’ Marco Antonio Barrera faced off at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The event — labelled Playing with Fire — was supposed to confirm Naz’s place at the top of the boxing world.
“This is my test”, proclaimed Naseem Hamed at the time. “This is my defining moment, it’s time to prove who is the best.” Many years later, though, Hamed looked back on his most high-profile fight through a different lens…
“I should never have taken that fight. It's that carrot that dangles in front of you with so much money.”
Naseem’s journey to headlining at the MGM had been an incredible story over over the decade which preceded the Barrera showdown.
From unheralded beginnings, it is somewhat difficult to quantify the scale of the impact Naz had in 1990s Britain, not just on boxing, but also on the sporting and cultural landscape of the time. This was a young, brash Muslim of Yemeni descent who became a phenomenon, transcending barriers of race and class through his own outlandish character, behaviour and thrilling performances. Growing up in the London of this era as I did, it was sometimes difficult to move without seeing Naseem; he was ever-present across the media at a time when Cool Britannia was sweeping the world.
Quiet and polite outside the ring, Naz quickly cultivated a cocksure and spectacular style inside it, growing into a huge ticket seller and magnet for media attention in Britain after going pro at 18.
His trademark leopard-print shorts and elaborate entrances, combined with his goading and big-punching fight style, captured the imagination of viewers across Britain. We have a tendency to prefer humility in our champions and generally abhor arrogance, but whether people were watching him to cheer, or watching in the hope he was knocked off his perch, they were still watching.
Under the tutelage of trainer Brendan Ingle, Hamed quickly built both a reputation as a knockout machine and an ever-growing fanbase, drawing millions to watch his fights on UK TV. Finishing 10 of his first 11 wins early, by 1994 he was taunting and parading his way to victory over Vincenzo Belcastro for the European bantamweight title. Eighteen months later, Hamed was WBO featherweight champion at just 21 years of age, announcing himself on the global scene by outclassing Welshman Steve Robinson in front of a rabid 16,000 crowd in Cardiff.
Naz had no problem being the pantomime villain that night, as he strutted and pummeled his way to victory.
“I created The Prince,” he once explained. “If all I did was sit at a press conference and say things like ‘I’ve trained hard; I’ll do my best’, no one would care. But when I’m loud and cocky, it makes people switch on their televisions and that means I’m doing my job.”
There were two other fighters joining the professional ranks over this period who would not only end up far outstripping Hamed’s career achievements but also his ability to generate enormous financial income – Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. For now though, in the mid-1990s, Naseem was set to become the sub-140-lb star attraction in the eyes of those who really mattered. Some achievement for a former flyweight from Sheffield. It was just a matter of time before the big money of America came calling.
He was positioned as a crossover star in the US, with appearances on programmes like The Tonight Show with Jay Leno interspersed with actual boxing fights on regular cable in an attempt to cultivate a fanbase prepared to pay big to watch his career evolve on pay-per-view.
HBO invested a huge amount of time and effort in Naseem Hamed, to an extent never seen before in his weight class. For his part, Naz delivered some excellent content for fans, such as his slightly bonkers four-round slugfest with Kevin Kelley in December 1997 at Madison Square Garden, a fight that saw both fighters knocked down three times and TV executives in raptures at the possibilities for the charismatic Hamed. The frailties inherent in his performance that night seemed less important.
Hamed was signed to a $12-million, six-fight deal to jump on board with HBO initially, and ended up being paid more than $6 million for taking on Barrera alone.
Barrera had just come off a match with fellow Mexican super bantamweight Eric Morales. A wonderful fight, eventually the first of an all-time classic trilogy, Barrera lost by a split decision which most people saw as unjust. He then moved up in weight in 2001, competing at featherweight, the division in which Hamed was already the big fish, with The Prince having held the WBO crown since 1995. Hamed dropped the WBO title so that the Barrera fight – and the career-high payday – could be finalised.
Hamed went into the fight as 35-0, with 31 knockouts, and a huge betting favourite. A bet on Barrera winning would get you 3-to-1 odds or higher. When polled by HBO before the Barrera fight, 28 of 30 boxing writers picked Hamed to win.
In Hamed’s camp though, all was not well. Naseem arrived for the Barrera camp 40 pounds overweight, and had cultivated an increasingly lax perspective on the gym work required at the elite level of the sport – he ended up having to desperately battle to lose two stone in eight weeks to be able to make weight for the fight, completely drained as he ran on treadmills at 5 am and took baths as hot as possible to lose whatever weight he could. Having been sent tapes of Barrera to study by co-trainer Emanuel Steward, in advance of a contest that the Kronk legend knew was a fierce challenge, Hamed initially pretended that he’d never received them.
Naz had checked out mentally. His relationship with his trainers was frayed, duties being shared between Oscar Suarez and Steward after a tumultuous split from Ingle. They struggled to maintain discipline in a fighter whose wealth and fame had grown exponentially in such a short time. Suarez was maintained as day-to-day trainer whilst Steward was employed more for tactical analysis. Steward threatened to quit the team if his training methods were not obeyed, and was openly critical prior to the Barrera fight as he saw the incoming iceberg looming.
As the bout itself unfolded, two things became abundantly clear: Hamed’s heart was no longer in it, and Barrera’s abilities had been drastically underappreciated.
Completely flummoxed and unable to generate significant offence at any stage of the bout, Hamed cut a frustrated figure as he desperately threw wild shots in a futile attempt to land a big blow which would stem the tide - but his power wasn’t going to get him out of trouble this time.
In the 12th round, Barrera, sensing victory was already his, opened up somewhat and finally went head-hunting, while a desperate Naz swung wildly in a vain attempt to do something, anything meaningful. Barrera could even allow for being deducted a point towards the end for a sequence that ended in the Mexican arm-locking Hamed and walking him head first into the turnbuckle. It mattered not; the judges all favoured Barrera, with two scores of 115-112 and a 116-111 perhaps being somewhat generous to Naz in hindsight. The Prince was made to look like a pauper on his biggest night.
As much as this was a bad night for The Prince, it was a wonderful night for Barrera, whose outstanding performance in the face of all the razzmatazz cemented his own reputation as one of the sport’s best. This was acknowledged by what felt like the real Naseem Hamed, stripped of his bluster and pomp, in his post-fight interview…
“He won the fight, he won it clearly in my eyes. I didn’t box to the best of my ability, but credit is due to him. But I will be back… great fighters have lost before and they come back.”
But Hamed only fought once more, a dire 2002 points win over Manuel Calvo in London which saw the crowd booing and leaving in their droves before the final bell. The fact that this was still a major event in Britain for a bout to decide the holder of the irrelevant IBO featherweight world title exemplified the star status Naz had attained. Despite rumours of returns on both sides of the Atlantic in the coming years, Hamed stayed in the shadows for years, retiring at just 28 years old.
Boxing, much as life itself, is all about the finer details, and the reality upon closer inspection in 2001 was that Naz was a fighter who no longer seemed willing or able to do what was necessary to retain his new-found lofty status.
Hamed was next in the news when he was responsible for a considerable car wreck in 2005; he ended up serving 15 months of a five-year sentence. He eventually reappeared as a manager to fighters including Callum Johnson, before making a few noteworthy appearances as a boxing pundit on TV. He was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2015.
Despite his lowkey presence over the last two decades, Naseem’s influence can be felt in the sport to this very day. As you watched Tyson Fury strutting out to the ring with the American flag emblazoned across his outfit (including, of course, his oversized hat) or going full Spartan along with an army of extras prior to Fury-Wilder III, the lineage can be traced back directly to the blueprint set out by the ‘Prince’.
Whether it be the flying carpet to the ring, knocking over gravestones in a Halloween set while ‘Thriller’ blared out on the PA system or simply executing his trademark somersault over the ring ropes, Hamed truly demonstrated a new manual for the boxer as a showman outside the ring, a baton which has since been picked up by an untold number of fighters.
In his time as a professional Hamed helped to usher in a new era, one in which fighters at the lower end of the sport’s weight classes could not only become bonafide pay-per-view headliners, but also eventually solidify themselves as some of the highest earners in the game. As Dominic Ingle, heavily involved in Hamed’s career prior to the late-90s split from his family’s gym, put it when reflecting on his journey in 2015…
“Realistically, he should have been doing what Floyd Mayweather is doing now. He won every major version of the world title, but didn’t hold them all together. But, once the balance shifts and you don’t enjoy the training and there are other things in your life, it is the beginning of the end… You can get so far with your skill and ability, but eventually you are going to get caught out.”
The fight against Barrera remains one of the most high-profile examples of a fighter getting caught out in boxing history.
….It might seem a tad odd to look back at a fight on its 21st anniversary, however for fans of a certain vintage Naseem Hamed was an unforgettable gateway into the sport. You didn’t even have to like the guy, it didn’t matter, this was a pantomime villain with dynamite in his fists who took his career from the back streets of Sheffield to the bright lights of Vegas, before his inability to keep in touch with reality was his undoing. Perhaps undoing is a bit overboard, given how much he achieved and the money his run generated, however clearly this is a fighter who could have done more and should have had even bigger nights ahead.
It’s also interesting to think just how desperately boxing could do with another Naz in the modern game, or something close, to inject the sheer showbiz and spectacle which is often missing. He was a true one-off though. Whatever your thoughts on him and the way he carried himself, you just could not take your eyes off him…
THE BOXING AGENDA
Thoughts on the boxing newswire…
A few editions back, I looked at the potential boxing trend for 2022 of fighters looking to take back control of their own careers and beat the system in the name of legacy. Well, it now looks like Devin Haney has decided to do exactly that by departing Matchroom and accepting a deal for a fight with George Kambosos Jr. for the undisputed lightweight title in Melbourne, Australia on June 5th. To get the opportunity to become the first person to hold the WBO, WBA, IBF and WBC titles in the 140-pound division, he has been required to accept both a rematch clause (should he win, which would also be in Australia) and a multi-fight co-promotional deal with Top Rank and Lou DiBella. Although this might not have been his preferred route in a perfect world, in the one we do live in Haney will, should he beat Kambosos, likely have one more fight under that deal before would once again be a free agent - which might well be against Vasyl Lomachenko. There are legitimate concerns that Haney is having to accept so many provisos to get the Kambosos fight, and I concur that rematch clauses are a painful part of the modern game, but this is boxing so the fact that someone like Bob Arum is stacking the decks like this in his side’s favour should come as no surprise - but Haney should be praised for looking to scale the mountain. He is backing himself to deliver the goods away from home to become undisputed, before potentially retaining his title over one of the greats of his generation, and he’s doing this at only 23 years old. Haney has taken a lot of stick for being an ‘email champion’ who hasn’t earned his status, but the current WBC kingpin’s ambitions surely can’t be questioned now. Devin has the opportunity to create his own future…
Eddie Hearn has stated that Devin Haney’s plan is to become undisputed and then ‘come back’ to Matchroom and DAZN after his sojourn under DiBella and Top Rank, and that it was a chance that just couldn’t be turned down, but we’ll have to wait and see if that ends up happening. This does feel like another blow for Hearn though, not only given that Haney has been one of the most prominent Matchroom USA fighters for a number of years, but also because he has been open about seeing Australia as a huge area for growth over the next year and beyond. Securing Kambosos-Haney on DAZN - which seemed feasible, given Kambosos is promoted by DiBella, who doesn’t have a TV network affiliation - would have been a chance to supercharge that Antipodean opportunity and fill the card with their Australian talent, but it wasn’t meant to be. In the UK, this fight will now presumably be on Sky Sports given their deal with Top Rank, whereas in the US it will be live on ESPN. Matchroom and DAZN are delivering the deepest and most varied boxing schedule in the sport, but are again not part of a major event that was clearly in their plans for 2022 and has the potential to gain mainstream interest in key markets.
Might Gervonta Davis be looking to make a new start, and follow Haney’s lead by departing his long-term home of Mayweather Promotions in search of securing his legacy? Reports indicate that could well be on the cards, given that ‘Tank’s’ current Mayweather deal supposedly expires after his fight with Rolando Romero on May 28th. It would certainly give him the opportunity to test himself against the best of the lightweight division, something which is highly unlikely to happen were he to remain within the PBC and Showtime ecosystem. Given how deeply aligned Davis and Mayweather have been throughout the former’s career, however, I think I’ll believe the split when I see it.
On a number of occasions, I’ve gone on record with stating that Gervonta is one of the most exciting talents in the sport, whilst also feeling that the positioning of him as being a legitimate lightweight world champion when he is just the WBA’s ‘regular’ world champion does him and his career a massive disservice. In fact, I wrote (quite a few) words about that very subject last year…
READ: The great pretenders - the frustrating marketing strategy behind the career of Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis
THE NEXT ROUND
A far-from-exhaustive rundown of upcoming highlights of the boxing calendar…
9th April 2022
Gennady Golovkin vs Ryota Murata
Promoter: Teiken/GGG Promotions | TV: DAZN (UK and US)
This is the second time I’ve published a preview for this fight, and it’s one which it feels like we have been discussing for as long as I can remember. After an abandoned attempt to put on the fight due to Covid travel restrictions, we will now finally see IBF middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin face 160-pound WBA ‘Super’ titlist Ryota Murata at the Saitama Super Arena, in a unification fight that will take place the day after Gennady’s 40th birthday. This will be a major event in Japan, available in other territories on DAZN, and for those of us in the UK it will be a rare Saturday lunchtime world title fight.
A slightly younger, more active Golovkin would surely be too much for a fighter like Murata, but in this instance, the fact that he is older and hasn’t really fought much in such a long time does make the fight more interesting. I wrote the below prior to the aborted December fight and it still rings mostly true today…
“A unification fight for both Golovkin’s IBF and Murata’s WBA middleweight titles, given how difficult it has proved in recent times to get the 160-pound champions in a ring together, should be celebrated. I’d rather have seen Gennady against Charlo, but hey this is boxing so we don’t always get nicer things. Murata has avenged every defeat on his record, and while he hasn’t faced anyone close to GGG’s level, he was an Olympic gold medalist in 2012 and has an impressive level of punch output which should give his Kazakh opponent something to think about. Gennady will have inevitably slowed down a tad, though the man himself disputes this. Certainly, I would have hoped Golovkin would have been a bit more active in recent times; time has been of the essence for a while now for the man Jim Lampley used to do lovingly call ‘Kazakh Thunder’ on HBO Boxing.”
Murata himself is now 36 years old and hasn’t fought since way back in December 2019, but it does feel like every year counts when a fighter gets towards the end of their careers. The Japanese star has the ability to give ‘Triple G’ trouble, perhaps similarly to the way in which Sergiy Derevyanchenko did in 2019, plus this is easily the biggest fight of Murata’s career. With that said, and despite the uncertainty around how much he has left, I would still go for Golovkin to win here, with the potential of a third fight with Canelo Alvarez up at super middleweight on the cards for later this year, if he take the victory here and Saul manages to overcome Dmitry Bivol. There will be plenty of opportunities to dissect the merits, or otherwise, of that megabout if or when it is confirmed, but for now the return of GGG against a live opponent is something to be excited about.
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Errol Spence vs Yordenis Ugas
Promoter: Premier Boxing Champions | TV: Showtime pay-per-view (US)
OK so it’s not Errol Spence vs Terence Crawford, the fight boxing fans have been calling out to see for YEARS, but this is still a legitimately sizeable unification fight in the welterweight division and a genuinely absorbing contest in its own right, with three of the four major world belts (WBC, WBA and IBF) on the line. I took an in-depth look at the 147-pound landscape last year and it remains a weight class filled with numerous intriguing scenarios.
Although most of the players remain in place, a few things have happened in the welterweight class over the last twelve months: we’ve seen the retirement of legend Manny Pacquiao, after late replacement Yordenis Ugas clearly and decisively outpointed the ‘Pac Man’ in August, in an opportunity which had originally been given to Spence; Crawford has left long-time promoter Top Rank, with his next move to be confirmed, perhaps pending the result of Spence-Ugas; Shawn Porter has also hung up the gloves after his absorbing stoppage loss to Crawford in November last year; former welterweight leading light Keith Thurman has returned to the scene, claiming that he still has a role to play at the top level; and the next generation of the division such as Jaron Ennis has continued to move closer to a legitimate world title opportunity (Ennis will be the IBF’s mandatory challenger if he wins his next fight).
Back to the matter at hand - Ugas is a legitimate threat to Spence here, the latter so long a shoo-in for a top-five place in the pound-for-pound discussion but having suffered problems in recent years. Yordenis’ stock has never been higher, and the Cuban’s awkwardness, strong defensive skills and counter-punching abilities mean this is by no means a guaranteed win for ‘The Truth’. Spence has also only fought once (a December 2020 unanimous points win over Danny Garcia) since his recovery from that major car accident he suffered in 2019 and, although he looked good that night, some questions perhaps do linger on the long-term impact of the crash, a situation which Spence was in fact lucky was not more serious. He also had to pull out of the Pacquiao fight last year due to an extremely painful-sounding retinal tear, casting further doubt. Spence remains an outstanding, well-rounded boxer though, with the ability to dissect his opponents, delivering pressure at scale and speed, so if forced to pick a winner I would still lean to his side of the argument in a close points decision, perhaps controversial, but maybe Errol is there for the taking. It’s beautifully poised either way.
Showtime does a good hype job for the fight with the first Spence-Ugas episode of their consistently engaging ALL ACCESS series. As things stand no UK TV broadcaster has been announced, so it’s likely that unless Sky Sports made a late move this will end up as a standalone pay event on FITE TV…
Whoever now wins, can we please get an undisputed fight locked in with Terence Crawford for later this year? That long-mooted Spence-Crawford fight could and would be a legitimately huge event (Spence himself recently stating it could be "the biggest fight in sports"), and would demonstrate that boxing can actually deliver the bouts fans really want to see. If Ugas prevails next weekend though he would have done everything he can to deserve that opportunity too.
