By Terence Dooley
In Part One, we looked at fighters who didn’t get a crack at one of the top four titles, but could and should have if it wasn’t for shock defeats, injuries, a lack of dedication or all three. Now we will turn our attention to British fighters who either won or fought for a top title. Two of them fell just short, the third won plenty of belts yet did not reach the level that many believed he was capable of reaching.
Shoulda: Naseem Hamed
“The Price” electrified the British scene during the 1990s, his flamboyant ring entrances, outlandish declarations and stunning KOs prompted awe amongst fans, reporters and people who dipped in and out of the sport. However, there are some who queried whether the former WBO, IBF and WBC featherweight champion should have been inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, while others demanded it from the moment he was eligible.
Hamed, 36-1 (31), divides opinion, but our quick Twitter straw poll saw David Matthews (@AyresomeAngel46), Dave Coldwell (@davidcoldwell), Kevin Armstrong (@kevincarmstrong1), Paul Gielbert (@paulgielbert) and Joseph Webb (@joseph_webb) name him as a potential ATG.
By 1995, and bearing in mind he had yet to win a world title, Naz’s fame was already so great that he visited the Yemen, his family’s homeland, as an official guest of President Saleh, who gave the sporting star the Order of Merit, the country’s highest accolade. Yemenites mobbed Hamed wherever he went during the visit [John Cooper for the Middle East Economic Digest, April 21 1995].
During the next few years, he hovered up titles courtesy of wins over Steve Robinson (TKO 8 for the WBO belt), Tom Johnson (TKO 8 to get the IBF strap) and Cesar Soto (W12 to add the WBC belt to his collection). He also took America by storm with wins over Kevin Kelly (W KO 4 at Madison Square Garden), Wayne McCullough (W12 in Atlantic City), and Augie Sanchez (TKO 4 at Foxwoods Resort in Connecticut).
Indeed, Hamed’s October 31st showdown with Wayne McCullough obtained a ‘season-high 12.8 rating’ [Multichannel News, November 9 1998], .8 higher than Oscar De La Hoya’s third-round TKO win over Patrick Charpentier in June of that year.
“In one short year [Hamed] has established himself as the fastest-rising newcomer on the American boxing scene,” stated Lou DiBella, then the senior vice president of programming for HBO Sports. “Love him or hate him, [Hamed] compels you to watch him, and him putting boxing on the radar screen for a new generation of fans.”
Just under four years later, his career was over following a loss to Marco Antonio Barrera for the IBO belt (L12 in April 2001) and an abysmal comeback display against Manuel Calvo (W12 in May 2002)—a performance that led Michael Henderson of the Spectator to dismiss Hamed as a pretender, rather than a prince. He wrote: ‘Hamed, who used to box under the absurd sobriquet ‘Prince', was really a commoner all along,’ [Spectator, May 25 2002]. The win was supposed to set-up a domestic showdown with Manchester’s Michael Brodie, who boxed on the undercard (W 12 over Pastor Humberto Maurin), but it turned out to be Hamed’s last fight.
Sadly, the man who had once enthralled British and American crowds was booed for his lacklustre performance, prompting Hamed to declare that: ‘They just don't understand the craft of boxing. But I would love to come back to London to entertain them again.’ It didn’t come to pass, Hamed put on weight, settled into retirement and will never box again.
Following his retirement, boxing fans have fallen into two camps: Naz fans argue that he should have reached greatness, and did to an extent, while his detractors have retconned his career to such a degree they give little credence to what he achieved.
As is invariably the case, the truth lies somewhere between the two polarised views. Hamed lost to a genuine great in Barrera, so fell just short of that rarefied level, but his impact on the sport was significant and widespread. In order to gauge his impact, you would have to talk to some of the trade insiders who were there to watch his rise.
Andy Ayling, Frank Warren’s event manager, watched Hamed come through the ranks, he believes we were spoiled and may never see his like again. “Naseem Hamed was the greatest fighter this country ever had,” is Ayling’s take on Hamed.
“He was something unique. No fighter has even been worth as much commercially with Naz without being a heavyweight. We used to get TV money from countries where they still point at airplanes—that kid was a phenomenon.”
Steve Lillis is one of the faces of BoxNation; the experienced and respected journalist was there for Hamed's debut (W TKO 2 over Ricky Beard). Lillis had seen plenty of great fighters yet the mercurial young talent astounded him.
“I had my ups and downs with Naz, as did many journalists, but I was blessed to be around his career,” recalled Lillis when speaking to BoxingScene. “He is the best British fighter I have seen in the flesh. The Vincenzo Belcastro win so early in his career was sensational. The Wilfredo Vazquez performance doesn't get enough credit. Myself and Kevin Mitchell [of the Guardian] were the only national reporters at his debut, but even then there was a feeling something special on the horizon. Had he stayed with the Ingle family at Wincobank it may not have ended so bad. I believe the booing after the Calvo win hurt just as much as losing to Barrera.”
Certainly, and as stated above, Hamed’s career was not a damp squid, but the loss to Barrera and premature retirement will always leave plenty of tantalising questions. In my opinion, Hamed should have and could have done more yet there is no denying his impact on the sport.
Coulda: Colin Jones
My personal pick is Colin Jones, the Welshman fought for the world title three times, however I believe that he could have won a portion of the title had his team brought Milton McCrory over to the U.K., rather than twice taking him on in America during 1983.
Jones, 26-3-1 (23), was a sensation puncher, an underrated technician and as tough as they come. By the time he did get a home soil world title fight Don Curry was in the opposing corner, back when Curry was still Curry, and the sharp shooting American derailed Jones’s world title dreams.
The flame-haired former Olympian earned his title shot by picking up British, Commonwealth and EBU titles as well as destroying the likes of Kirkland Laing (two ninth-round TKO wins) and Hans-Henrik Palm (W TKO 2).
In Jones’s opinion, the win over Palm in Denmark was his high-water mark; it also meant he was ranked at number three by the WBC and eligible to fight for the vacant title against the Kronk-based McCrory. Mickey Duff tried to secure the right to stage the contest, but Don King bettered his bid.
“The way I looked at it—after we had the offer from Mickey Duff and the higher offer from King—was that I could hit him on the chin in Nevada or I could hit him on the chin in Wembley, with the same result,” said Jones during a 2009 interview with BoxingScene. “I had no fear of going to fight anyone in their own back garden. I brought my own judges and referee (my fists).”
McCrory boxed beautifully in the middle rounds only for Jones to land some big bombs. In the ninth round Colin broke through with a clean left hook, McCrory was all at sea—it was the Laing fights all over again.
“It probably looked like that from the outside, but when you are in the fight you don’t think about stuff like that, you don’t think about what round it is,” he recalled. “I probably didn’t realise how much I had him going until I saw the tape afterwards. I didn’t sense it in the fight itself and couldn’t explain to you why (that was). I normally could see the winning post and nail a guy.”
McCrory’s early lead had been chipped away. Milton recently claimed that this contest, and the rematch, hinged on the final rounds; McCrory rallied in rounds 10 and 12, and looked to have nicked it at the death, the judges called it a draw.
Fortunately, the Reno crowd had taken to Jones, cheering him on throughout the fight whilst sporadically booing the backwards movement of McCrory. Jones travelled to American for a second time for a mandated rematch. The return took place in Las Vegas. It was held in the afternoon amid stifling 100 degrees heat. Jones wanted to feel his way into the fight only to cop a counter left hook at the end of the first round.
“It was totally alien for me to be on the deck in the first round of a fight, or any round for that matter, because I’d never been down before! It was a new experience for me. I remember looking at the corner. [His trainer] Eddie [Thomas] told me to get up at eight or seven. There was no danger of me being knocked out, but I was now trying to make sure I didn’t get a conk on top of that one.”
In many ways, it was a carbon copy of the first contest only with a different outcome; McCrory was awarded the title on a split-decision. Jones’s dream had died, and there were no excuses.
“You hear a lot of people losing fights and saying things and it sounds like sour grapes,” he said. “I made the choice to go to America for those fights, to be honest it was a case of such a big purse, or two, that I didn’t really have any option, so I took it. I didn’t get the nod, and that was it.”
It wasn’t over just yet, Jones was well-respected so was still in the world title hunt. “After the title losses Frank (Warren) came along and got me two 10 rounders in 1984 [W KO 2 over Allen Braswell and W TKO 10 against Billy Parks], and then got me the Don Curry fight [in 1985].
“I wasn’t in love with the game anymore by that point. You wake up in the morning see the bad weather and think: ‘Another hour in bed’, it is your body’s way of telling you that you are no longer there. I was still prepping well, but was showing the signs of a long time in the game without a break. They leave their mark, those hard fights. No fighter gets away with two tough fights like the McCrory fights—it takes years to get the memory out of your system.”
Hopes of a Jones win were based on his considerable punching power, which was still top class, and the whispers circulating about Curry’s struggle against the scales. Curry abstained from food for a full day during fight week, a cup of tea his only sustenance. Despite this the visitor was every inch the budding superstar during the fight itself. Upon realising that the ring was too soft for excessive moving and boxing the champion elected to stand and fight, Jones had suspected that this may be the case.
“I knew about Curry, I had read about him, a good crisp combination hitter, but there was nothing different about prepping for him. You never know what to expect on fight night. I knew he could move and throw class combinations, but I knew he couldn’t hurt me, and in that respect the cuts and the bruises I suffered were just a nuisance—I wasn’t rocked or frozen.”
A horizontal slash across the bridge of the nose heralded a critical moment in the fight, and Jones’s career, as it was clear that he needed to score a knockout in order to win the world title.
“Eddie told me it was a bad cut (at the end of round three), and that I had to make the most of the fight while it lasted. I still don’t think that Curry was a real mover, he stood and traded with the best of them and that was all right by me at that point. I didn’t know how bad the cut was until I saw it from the outside, and it was a bad one. I think the cut itself was an accumulation of three or four punches [a left uppercut followed by a few jabs]. The referee said: ‘Stop boxing’ in round four, and the doctor stopped the fight. I had a couple of stitches afterwards, and that was it.”
Jones sagged into the ring post when told that his title bid was over, a shot of him howling with frustration was voted one of the images of that sporting year. Cut or no cut he had wanted to fight to the finish, and he knew that his last chance for a world title had slipped away.
There wasn’t a hint of bitterness about Jones when I spoke to him about his world title fights, he shrugged off the suggestion that he could have beaten McCrory if either of the two fights had taken place in the U.K. preferring instead to focus on fact rather than fiction. Still, his fans can dream and ask themselves: “What if?” whenever talk turns to the big punching former gravedigger.
Woulda: Michael Brodie
Given the right circumstances, both John Murry and Jamie Moore could have won world titles. However, both men will tell you that another Northerner deserved at least a portion of the world crown. In Manchester and Salford's gyms the name of that fighter drops as incessantly as the rain: “Brodie, Brodie, Brodie”, the man who had everything going for him except circumstance. A cult figure widely respected across the trade and named by Barkery Jammeh Junior (@BarkeryJammeh) as one who got away.
Brodie, 36-4-1 (24) breezed his way to British, Commonwealth and European belts (he defended this title five times) at Super bantamweight, before dropping a majority decision to Willie Jorrin for the WBC title vacated by Erik Morales. It was widely denounced as a “Robbery” and is still mentioned when fans discuss poor scoring.
A move up to featherweight brought WBF and IBO title successes. Brodie, though, fell short in two WBC world title fights against the tough Korean In-Jin Chi (D 12 and L TKO 7 in 2003 and 2004 respectively). There was a last hurrah, a hastily arranged WBO July 2005 challenge against the fearsome Scott Harrison, who sucked up some terrific shots before finishing Brodie in round four. “Mikie” announced his retirement immediately after the contest.
In-Jin crippled him in the ring; divorce from his wife, Donna, hammered him outside the ropes. It left Michael in a bad place. “I'll be straight with you, for two years my head was done in,” he admitted when speaking to me about his career a few years ago.
Brodie swallowed his disappointment after the Jorrin fight in a bid to settle the partisan crowd, but he always maintained that the win was ripped away from him unfairly on the cards. “If you are not the promoter's boy—like Ricky Hatton, Amir Khan and Joe Calzaghe, all good fighters, don't get me wrong—then you take the risks and you have to run the risk of the decision going the other way—that is what happened with me in the Jorrin fight. I battered Jorrin for 12 rounds, I am not mithered what anyone says, including the judges.
“I had to keep my own cool when the result came in, my fans were going mad, they would have smashed the place up. I had to hide my own disappointment. I have watched my [world title] fights again and I think that out of the three times I boxed for the WBC title I was robbed out of it twice—[in] the first Chi fight, and the Jorrin fight. The first [Chi] fight was one where I was definitely robbed.
“For the [Scott] Harrison fight, I was going through a bad time, there was family problems, but if you watch the fight I was beating him. He caught me with body shots in rounds three and four [Brodie had also been hurt with body shots whilst sparring John Murray and Andy Morris] and I just thought: ‘Get out [of the fight]'. I never wanted to take the fight anyway, I was not in the right frame of mind, but I took the risk and I lost. I believe that if your head is not there you should pull out before you get into the ring. Boxing is a hard sport.”
It certainly is, especially if you don’t get the breaks. Brodie was a few points away from a world title when he boxed Jorrin, if the decision had gone the other way he would have been a world champion, and deservedly so. As it stands, his name will always pop up when fans talk about fighters who should have been world champions, although the man himself bristles when this is mentioned to him and points to his WBF and IBO belts. It’s a pity he didn’t get to add the WBC title to his resume.
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