At one point in Giant, the new film about “Prince” Naseem Hamed and Brendan Ingle, we hear Brendan’s wife, Alma, say, “It’s happening again.” Then, when she is asked to specify exactly what is happening again by her son, John, Alma responds: “Same story, different actors.”
It could in some ways be interpreted as a meta moment in an otherwise by-the-numbers boxing biopic; a recognizing of its own reliance on generic plot beats, dialogue, and montages. But instead, the allusion to “same story, different actors” simply refers to Alma watching her husband, a famed boxing trainer from Sheffield, once again endure the pain of seeing one of his boxers leave him for another gym. The comment suggests that it has happened many times before and is now something of an occupational hazard. It also conveniently foreshadows what is to come with Hamed.
In fact, if Giant brings anything to the pantheon of boxing films, it is that: a heavy focus on the inevitability of fighters and trainers drifting apart. To its credit, the film, rather than punch above its weight, stays small by sticking with that fighter-trainer dynamic and exploring that, just that. It sets the table for it early on when we watch Ingle coerce a 12-year-old Hamed (Hamed said he was 11) into shaking on a trainer/manager deal which will entitle Ingle to 25 per cent of Hamed’s earnings when he eventually becomes the superstar Ingle fully expects him to become. Hamed, of course, not knowing any better, agrees to the deal, figuring that giving Ingle £10 million of his predicted £40 million fortune isn’t the worst thing in the world, and that’s it, the table is set. For the next hour and a half, we will watch these two men – man and boy, then man and man – gradually drift apart and come to dislike everything they once cherished about the other.
In the case of Ingle, he grows to resent the same arrogance and single-mindedness he once encouraged in Hamed back when he was an amateur boxer whose face didn’t fit. In the case of Hamed, meanwhile, it is soon clear that familiarity breeds contempt. It is clear, too, that he hates the idea of Ingle taking credit for what Hamed believes is a gift from Allah. That, says Ingle in the film, may be true of Hamed’s talent, but the skills Hamed acquired along the way were taught only by him, Ingle, inside Sheffield’s Wincobank Gym.
As the film then progresses, both arguments start to carry weight. From the point of view of Hamed, he has every right to renegotiate his deal with Ingle once good enough to start making serious money and old enough to realise it was totally wrong. In a climactic, imagined scene, Hamed, played by Amir El-Masry, even scoffs at Ingle describing their relationship as father-son when knowing it began, or at least intensified, only once they shook hands on a business arrangement on top of a hill. It was at that moment, Hamed said, the distinction between the two – father and son, trainer and fighter – was obvious.
“That alone shows you who that man is,” Hamed – the real Hamed – said in a recent interview on talkSPORT. “But regardless, I’m not here to tear him down. If that’s the way you are, that’s the way you are. We still had an amazing relationship.”
Ingle, who passed away in 2018, will have had his own view on this relationship, of course, and every right to believe he was acting in good faith throughout it. After all, when he points out that he gave 17 years of his life to Hamed – training him from the age of seven until 24 – he is not exaggerating. Nor did Ingle’s way of life, and the fact he spent most of it helping street kids find direction and discipline, indicate he was a mercenary or a man whose interest in a young fighter was purely financial. “When the thing fell apart, he was the highest paid trainer in the world,” said Hamed. “I was paying him more than any other fighter was paying their trainer. But sometimes it’s never enough, is it?”
To highlight the tension between the two men, Giant features a scene in which Hamed tempts Ingle to spar with him in the ring, then acts surprised when Ingle takes him up on the offer. What follows is a brief bit of body-sparring punctuated by Hamed uttering the immortal line: “So who’s more important, the trainer or the fighter?”
It is said just after Hamed has hurt his trainer to the body and Ingle, doubled over in pain, delivers no response. What can he really say, after all? It is a loaded question – loaded with both spite and power – and Ingle accepts, as every trainer accepts, he has nothing in the chamber by way of retort. Even if he should remind his fighter of the many hours he spent training him, and caring for him, and funding him, there is no counterpunch strong enough when a fighter puts their trainer in their place like that. It’s always there, that question, hanging between the two – trainer and fighter – and it’s only when a relationship sours that it becomes spoken, unleashed. It is then you can be certain the damage done is irreparable. It is then that The End seems inevitable.
Nine times out of ten the fracture itself is inevitable, particularly in a sport like boxing, where the goal is to make money and the fuel is testosterone and ego. Whether they become a success or not, no fighter ever finishes their career the same way they started it – both physically and mentally – and the same can be said for the person who trained them, too. Together on this most unusual journey, full of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, it is perhaps only natural that they will struggle to remember what it was that brought them together in the first place. Typically, one bad defeat, and that’s it. Someone must be held accountable. Someone must go. Then even when things go well, as was true of Hamed, the need to blame is replaced by a growing paranoia and greed, for both money and power. Suddenly now, with a whole host of people telling you how great you are, it is no longer essential to have your coach provide words of encouragement or indeed anything at all. Suddenly now they become an inconvenience, a reminder of the helpless novice you used to be. In fact, why are they still around? Is it just for the money? Is it just to humble you?
It's a warped view, admittedly, and yet so many boxers will go through that thought process as their career starts to flourish. “First you use, then you abuse, then you accuse,” said Ingle, played by Pierce Brosnan in the film, and he’s right.
In a tale as old as time, one shouldn’t have to offer examples of a fighter turning on their trainer, nor is there any need to present examples of the opposite, when a trainer has betrayed a fighter’s trust or simply taken advantage of them financially. It happens regularly – both scenarios – and leaves many fighters and trainers haunted by regret as they sit down to write their Hall of Fame induction thank-you speech and wonder which names to include and which ones to omit.
That sense of poignancy gave Giant its best scene in a mostly uneven and strange little film. The scene in question, which took place on the night of Hamed’s fight against Marco Antonio Barrera in 2001, had the audience watching Hamed’s sole pro loss through the eyes of the Ingle family – Brendan, Alma, John and Dominic – at their home in Sheffield. It was not only a shrewd choice to present the fight in this way, but doing so established that the film was more interested in Brendan Ingle than Naseem Hamed. It also showed the disconnect between the two – Ingle failed to understand why Hamed fought the way he did in Las Vegas – and how wounded the trainer was to see his boy – “the Naz fella” – get humiliated on the biggest stage. For even though Brendan’s real boys, John and Dominic, happily cheered every Barrera blow and wished for Hamed’s demise, it was not so easy for Brendan, the creator. It was for that reason Brendan got up and went to sit outside, where his wife, upon joining him, pointed out the difference. “They are more angry than hurt,” she said, hearing her sons celebrate Barrera’s win in the living room.
On the face of Brendan, meanwhile, was a similar expression to the one Don Vito wore when seeing the dead body of Sonny, his firstborn, in The Godfather. “Look how they massacred my boy,” he might have said. Or, if not that, he might have said, as Mickey said to Rocky, “You’ve got a ticker problem. What’s the matter, you got nothing left inside? ‘Cause you’re training like a damn bum, you know that? A bum!”
Same story, different actors.
