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Naz Hall of Fame Bound
Excellent readEspecially the story at the end.
By Glyn Leach
There's a certain irony in Marco Antonio Barrera's retirement announcement coming at a point when his former opponent, Prince Naseem Hamed, has been proposed for induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
When the time comes, Barrera will be guaranteed his berth at Canastota -- his resume includes 25 world title fights, a champion in three weight divisions and a participant in some of the most memorable fights of his era. It's a no-brainer.
But he'll have to wait because it takes a half-decade of retirement before the gates of the IBHOF are opened to a fighter.
Can it really be over five years since Hamed's career was effectively finished by Barrera, who so thoroughly burst the Sheffield featherweight's undefeated bubble in Las Vegas in May 2001?
It seems so.
Hamed is one month younger than Barrera and turned pro three years after the Mexican. But he retired in 2002, at the age of 28, and with just the one loss -- by unanimous decision to Barrera -- on his record, which was capped, sealed and consigned to history at 36-1, 31 KOs.
That's an impressive log by anyone's standards and his former promoter, Frank Warren, has no doubts that the hard-hitting southpaw showman is worthy of a place in the Hall of Fame.
"He was a groundbreaking fighter," said Warren, "and at his peak he was without doubt head and shoulders above every featherweight in the division. He beat every one of the champions of his day."
For the record, Hamed defeated Steve Robinson for the WBO title, Tom "Boom Boom" Johnson for the IBF, Cesar Soto for the WBC, and the WBA champion, Wilfredo Vazquez, gave up his belt in order to face Hamed, the biggest star in the division at that time.
Hamed participated in 16 world title fights. While some of his opponents in those bouts were obscure (Said Lawal, KO1, March 1996) or had seen better days (Kevin Kelley, KO4 in that remarkable up-and-downer in New York, December 1997), others (Remigio Daniel Molina, Wayne McCullough) went on to challenge for world titles years after their defeat by Hamed, and two fighters stopped in the 11th by Hamed (Manuel Medina and Paul Ingle) went on to become world champions.
But to define Hamed with cold statistics would be failing to understand the phenomenon.
Without question, the Prince was the most exciting fighter of his era, an unorthodox power-puncher with natural talent to burn. His ring entrances were more WWE than Shawn Michaels himself and his fights were must-see events. Hamed had huge crossover appeal in Britain, where a younger-than-average fight crowd would pack arenas, never to be seen again once Elvis had left the building. These were Naz fans, not boxing fans.
But by the time the Hamed gravy train hit Vegas for the Barrera fight, it was as bloated, dysfunctional and delusional as any road trip undertaken by Elvis and the Memphis Mafia.
Hamed's final fight, against Manuel Calvo, 10 months after the Barrera defeat, was the fistic equivalent of the infamous concert in which an intoxicated, slurring Presley forgot the words to his songs -- a stumbling performance that was only a grotesque parody of far better days.
The writing had been on the wall for some time before Hamed's traumatic 36 minutes with Barrera. He'd long since begun to grow away from the things that had made him so successful in the first place.
His mentor and trainer, Brendan Ingle, was a long way in the past, replaced by a confused corner that saw Oscar Suarez and Emanuel Steward battle for the attention of the Prince while simultaneously and studiously ignoring each other.
Frank Warren, the promoter who took Hamed to the top after false starts under Mickey Duff and Barry Hearn, walked away after a vicious power struggle with Hamed's elder brother, Riath.
Hamed's world was already in meltdown before Barrera, and Warren believes that the Mexican caught him at just the right time.
"I was off the scene by that point -- I just didn't want to deal with his brother," he said. "But I'd tried to make a fight with Barrera for years. However his manager, Ricardo Maldonado, always seemed to find a good reason not to fight Naz."
Would a peak Hamed have beaten Barrera? Warren thinks so. And he is convinced that Hamed is a worthy candidate for induction into the Hall of Fame.
"He ticks all the boxes at one stage in his career," said the promoter.
I agree. Never mind the what-might-have-been, for three years Hamed ruled the featherweight world, entertaining a lot of people in the process. That deserves to be recognized by the boxing world.
***
In November 1996 I sat at ringside with Hamed when Barrera defended his WBO super bantamweight title against Junior Jones in Tampa, on the undercard to Roy Jones's light heavyweight title fight/spar with the ghost of Mike McCallum. Hamed and his wife were vacationing in Florida, courtesy of Walt Disney, at the time and initially had seemed reluctant to travel the relatively short distance to Tampa -- they were young, in love, and chilling.
Steve Bunce and I were the only British writers to have made the trip and we were in constant contact with Naz's telephone answering machine.
"Naz, get down here; come and watch the bloke you'll make millions fighting one day. "Pick up the phone Naz, I know you're there."
"Please Naz …" Our campaign worked and on fight night, Naz and Eleasha picked us up at our hotel and took us to the arena in a massive stretch limo. It was the beginning of a highly surreal evening for all of us, I think.
Naz had yet to make his U.S. debut or experience the trappings of stardom stateside style. The four of us spent the majority of the short limo drive marveling at the amount of compartments to open and gadgets we had to play with. British taxis aren't like that.
It was a chilly evening, but Naz was strutting his stuff in a leather waistjacket and no shirt. He may only have been 5-foot-3, but he still managed to be physically imposing. His biceps were huge and he happily flexed and posed for the crowd when he walked through the arena, some of whom recognized him even at that stage of his career, and some of whom booed -- which only made him flex and pose even more. It was all in good fun.
Lou DiBella, then still with HBO, was lurking at ringside. "Now there's a guy I'd like to meet," he said to me, easily loud enough for Hamed to hear. But the Prince was busy pressing the flesh and signing autographs. Eventually I made the intro but I am still waiting to receive my cut of the mega millions contract that would be signed between HBO and Hamed before long. Lou? Naz? You've probably lost my address. No problem, it's … Yeah, right.
Junior Jones got word that Hamed was at ringside and asked through a messenger if the Prince would come and visit him in his dressing room before his challenge to Barrera. Two years earlier, Jones had been stopped in defense of his WBA bantamweight title. His day appeared to have passed. He had put a winning run together since losing the title, but was a big underdog against the undefeated Mexican.
Naz happily obliged, bounded off backstage and reported back: "We had a good chat. Says he's seen all my fights. Nice guy. I think Junior needed a bit of a confidence boost."
After three rounds with Barrera, Jones had recovered all the confidence he would ever need. He seemingly couldn't miss the Mexican with right-handers. And they were doing damage.
Naz turned to me between rounds and asked: "He's not always this bad, is he?"
Two rounds later it was over as Barrera's corner entered the ring while the round was in progress, thus rescuing him from further punishment. Barrera was in front on the cards but things definitely were not going to his plan. And by getting Barrera disqualified by stepping through the ropes during a round, Ricardo Maldonado and Co. saved him from the first defeat proper of his career -- that would come five months later when Jones outpointed him in their rematch.
During his victory celebrations, Junior came over to our side of the ring and cheerily waved to Naz. But we were quietly stunned by what we had just seen.
Barrera was a forlorn figure as he sat on the press conference podium later that evening. He was deep in thought and remained sitting there as the room began to empty. As Naz and myself walked past him, the Prince stopped to shake his hand.
"Hard luck mate," said Hamed. "But you'd better do some work on blocking those right-handers."
And from that point on, I knew that Naz thought he had Barrera's number. I thought he did, too. Funny how things can work out.
Glyn Leach is the editor of Boxing Monthly.
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