Prince Naseem Hamed divided opinion in his heyday in the late 1990s, and he is set to do the same in 2026.
“Giant”, a movie starring Pierce Brosnan – the former James Bond actor – as legendary Sheffield trainer Brandan Ingle and Amir El-Masry as his star student Hamed, is due out in theaters in January.
The title of the film is about a little fella – more specifically, as Brendan Ingle called him, “the Naz fella” – and the impact Ingle predicted he would have.
Hamed, from Sheffield, UK, was an exciting, brash entertainer who had dynamite in his gloves (he referred to them as his “rocket launchers”) and who walked away from boxing in 2002 with a record of 36-1 (31 KOs).
He burned brightly, with his lone loss coming against Mexican great Marco Antonio Barrera, but by then a decline had already set in – and seasoned Hamed observers knew he was no longer the same fighter, so ambitious and hungry, that Ingle had created.
Instead, Naz was distracted. He linked up with Emanuel Steward, but even the great Detroit guru struggled to get Hamed back to what he was when he and Ingle carved out their incredible story.
The bitter split between the fighter and Sheffield trainer is the centerpiece of “Giant.”
Naseem Hamed was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2015. Ingle still has not gone in, despite creating countless champions – the majority of them from scratch, most notably Johnny Nelson, Kell Brook, Kid Galahad and Junior Witter, as well as countless other champions at British and European levels. Ingle is on the ballot year after year but always overlooked. Of course, Ingle did far more than just create champions. He was a pillar of the community, insisting that fighters sweep the streets around their neighborhood (so that everyone took pride in where they lived) and taking his fighters to working men’s clubs and prisons to talk to those who could use a healthy dose of positive inspiration.
That isn’t mentioned in the film, but you couldn’t document all of Ingle’s life in just one movie. You couldn’t even make it up. But the focus in “Giant” is of the Ingle-Hamed relationship – and it’s a good film, with two particularly poignant scenes, one with Brendan having a heart-to-heart about his life in boxing with his wife, Alma, and another that would involve divulging a spoiler.
For those around at the time, the journey of Naz and his emergence – through the domestic ranks and then on to the scene at European level before he claimed the world title on an adrenaline-soaked night in Cardiff, Wales – it is one of the standout periods in modern British boxing history.
Of course, only certain contests Naz had get the cinematic treatment in a film, and they only serve to distract from what the film is really about: the ties that bound trainer and fighter, mentor and young lad, and how they deteriorate when fame and money come calling.
It is a tale as old as time in boxing, yes, but it is one worth remembering, and therefore worth telling.
Whether Brosnan’s portrayal will help Ingle’s much-deserved enshrinement into Canastota become a reality remains to be seen, but it would only be fitting if Ingle were finally inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, even though it would sadly be posthumously. Maybe Naz could go there to pay tribute.
