was he the best swtich hitter ever? could he have been the greatest fighter ever if he didnt fuck around so much... steward said he was the hardest puncher p4p he ever trained
In case anyone hasn't mentioned it, look out for the documentary "The Little Prince, The Big Fight."
You can see the look on Steward's face as Naz is sloppy in sparring and not giving a shit. If he had, what would have happened?
He'd of won.
I found it amazing how Naz made it even that close against a modern legend, being in such poor shape.
In case anyone hasn't mentioned it, look out for the documentary "The Little Prince, The Big Fight."
You can see the look on Steward's face as Naz is sloppy in sparring and not giving a shit. If he had, what would have happened?
i think thats tha one i remember. did it talk about naz wanting the gloves made from lamb but then deciding he wanted the gloves barrera had chosen. tha whole preparation to that fight was fucked up.
I always thought "Prince" was overrated, Barrera beat him mental & physically. I love the way he smashed his face into the corner, "Prince" deserved it he was a dirty fighter lol
boxing is a martial art and there are many styles and there has never been a style like hameds he was like a power boxer southpaw swith hitter with a vicious jab.. he had great skills and power ... barerra is the best combination puncher in boxing especially at that time and it was a pretty close fight considering the circumstances it was the biggiest mismatch in styles for hamed and he barely trained compared to barerra and still looked pretty good
Hamed did have incredible power in both hands; I'm not denying that. What I"m saying is he was awkward and that had as much to do with his success as any physical gift he might have possessed. Most fighters fit into a handful of styles with their own variation, so as they come up through the amateurs and through the pros, they grow accustomed to seeing these relatively few styles and develope strategies accordingly. With Hamed, you couldn't find any sparring partner that could even remotely reproduce that style....there was essentially no way to train for him; but when he ran into Barrera, he ran into a man who had fine-tuned his craft and who wasn't worried about what Nasseem was going to do...he just did his thing and used his acquired ring-smarts. Nine times out of ten a true boxer who is a master of his craft is going to beat an awkward fighter, regardless of whether or not the awkward fighter is faster, punches harder, or whatever.
A craft perfected beats an aberrition 9 times out of 10. Barrera boxed, Hamed put on the "Prince Naseem Show"....and got upstaged.
He was awkward, goofy, and almost always off balance. What Barrera did is called boxing; and no number of dramatic entrances is gonna help yo goofy ass if you get in there with someone who knows what he's doing down to a tee.
boxing is a martial art and there are many styles and there has never been a style like hameds he was like a power boxer southpaw swith hitter with a vicious jab.. he had great skills and power ... barerra is the best combination puncher in boxing especially at that time and it was a pretty close fight considering the circumstances it was the biggiest mismatch in styles for hamed and he barely trained compared to barerra and still looked pretty good
can't be bothered reading all the replies so this may have been said...
hamed was clearly not in the right frame of mind for this fight...he'd bottled it even before getting in the ring, deciding against his customary somersault. hameds style relied on confidence in his ability which for some reason he lost immediately before this fight....
perhaps on another night, with the right focus and confidence hamed could have knocked Barrera out.
i think i saw a documentary covering this several years back...anyone remember it?
was he the best swtich hitter ever? could he have been the greatest fighter ever if he didnt fuck around so much... steward said he was the hardest puncher p4p he ever trained
He was awkward, goofy, and almost always off balance. What Barrera did is called boxing; and no number of dramatic entrances is gonna help yo goofy ass if you get in there with someone who knows what he's doing down to a tee.
Naz was close to getting exposed by Kevin Kelley too until Kelly got too cought up in knocking him out. Barrera completley outclassed Naz. I dont remember the fight being close at all. HBO was being bias towards Naz if I remember correctly.
I didnt follow boxing at Hamed's "peak" so I cant really say whether that was his best or not, but it looked to me like Barerra exposed him and its not fair to say his mind wasnt in it. Thats discrediting what MAB did.
Naz looked like the clown he was. He was a punk with a very weird style, no technique, even less balance, and very good power. Barrera was/is 1000x the boxer/fighter Naz could ever dream of being. Just another fizzled British hype gone bad.
MAB trained harder, had a better game plan and used Hameds ego against him!
On the night Barrera was the better fighter no doubt but dont kid yourself into saying he owned Hamed because he didn't.
I can recall clearly Barrera fighting for long spells behind a very high guard, he kept on the move, changed the angles and counter punched. Hamed hit air more often than not and slowed down. Barrera then upped his work rate.
Great fight plan from a great fighter.
It doesn't make Hamed a poor fighter though because he wasn't he was a breath of fresh air for this sport!
Hamed brought on the end of his own career as much as Barrera did!
was he the best swtich hitter ever? could he have been the greatest fighter ever if he didnt fuck around so much... steward said he was the hardest puncher p4p he ever trained
HaHa no he definitely could not have been the greatest fighter ever had he not f*cked around. Barrera was a step up in class for him and he was ruthlessly exposed by a better fighter, simple as that.
True, Hamed wasn't the best trainer, but he never was even when he was with Brendan Ingle. That said, i don't think that Hamed progressed as a fighter when he left Brendan Ingle which was supposedly the plan. If anything, Hamed went backwards and never fulifilled his potential IMO.
He wanted 'Yes' men working with him and surprisingly Manny Steward helped to fill that role, although Oscar Saurez was allegedly the 'Head' trainer!
In Steward's opinion Naseem Hamed is the hardest puncher he has ever worked with, but i'm not sure whether that can be taken literally as Steward has plenty of great things to say about every fighter he has worked with. Obviously Hamed hit hard but how would you compare his punching power p4p against the likes of Lewis, Hearns, McClellan etc?
Hamed was an exceptional fighter, and maybe if he hadn't believed in his own hype and trained a lot harder, instead of wasting time on ring entrances etc., then he may have achieved more, but the bottom line is that Barrera had the beating of Hamed, probably at any stage in their careers, though the version of Hamed that beat Steve Robinson was outstanding.
HE COULD OF LOST THE FIGHT BECUASE OF THAT
true... but the fact is he did not...
Barrera gave one hell of a performance against Naz... it was just that Naz was unable to adjust to MAB's game... or maybe, as they say, he was distracted/lost interest in the sweet science...
If you watch the documentary 'Little Prince, Big Fight' you see a huge contrast in training between Hamed and Barrera. Hamed is 'training' publicly at a five-star hotel, but more concerned about his hairstyle and the gloves he wanted to use than anything else. Barrera was locked away in a hut in the moutains, training like an animal.
Seriously, Hamed was being beaten up by sparring partners before the fight, and then would just call sparring off and start joking around. Was weird. He seemed out of control, and was running the show, and delusionally over-confident (even though he was looking shit in training).