By James Blears

Naseem Hamed, who's now a multi millionaire businessman and twenty five pounds plus over the featherwight limit, is apparently planning a return to the career which provided him with the keys to the money box. Talk is that he'll be back in training camp by the Summer and wants to fight again in October.

Naseem who grew up in the steel city of Sheffield in Northern England, packed a lot of southpaw punch into a wiry five foot three inch frame.

He shot to fame with excellent wins against Tom Johnson, Manuel Medina, Kevin Kelly and Cesar Soto. But all the glitz, vaulting over the ropes and show biz ended for Naz in 2001, when Marco Antonio Barrera exposed his range of technical deficiencies at top level, in a brutal one sided boxing lesson in Las Vegas.

Barrera outwitted, outjabbed, outclubbed and outclassed the Prince to take his crown and unbeaten record. Following the fight Marco confided that Naseem's style is choc a block with errors, but his one shot power must always be respected. Marco confided that a punch deflected off his collarbone, landed on his nose and opened a small, but deep cut. He had stuck to instructions by going in, inflicting maximum damage, and then moving back to survey his handiwork without getting involved in a toe to toe brawl, which could have lost him the fight by one unexpected but concluding punch.

Grateful to be handed back his career, which was in the doldrums, Marco pledged that Naseem could have a timely re-match, but Naz did not take up the offer

A torso covered with large red welts, Naseem's bruised esteem took much longer to recover. Since then he's only fought Spanish journeyman Manuel Calvo, but that was way back in May 2002. Ring rust showed, timing was off and he huffed and puffed to a workmanlike, if boring points decision. Thirty fights, only one blemish, but his pride in turmoil.

WBA and IBF featherweight champion and Marco's countryman Juan Manuel Marquez also agrees that Naseem's style often appears akin to an amatuer, and Juan claims that Naseem ducked his challange for more than two years.

Veteran trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr claims that he once got a phone call from Camp Naseem asking him to come and train the prince, but Floyd said he refused because of Naseem's clowning.

It all really seemed to start unravelling in 1999, when Naseem ditched his long time trainer Brendan Ingle. He teamed up with Manny Steward for five fights, but the partnership did not gel. Steward said that the Prince did not accept some top notch sparring partners that he had lined up for him, prior to the Barrera fight, and after the loss they parted ways.

So where does that leave Naseem? He's over thirty years old, out of the ring for over two years, lost his best trainer,lost his hunger and he's quite a bit overweight. He'll have to climb a physical and psychological mountain to get back to the top. With Naseem anything's possible, even the impossible, but it's going to require a superhuman humility and dedication. The real question is whether he's prepared to knuckle down and temper his ego. Will the leopard change his spots?