Floyd vs Prince Naz

[Manju]

For me, this question begs another question: how much of Naseem Hamed’s decline was attributable to the fact that he fought way above his natural weight class. I mean, did he ever even once have a reach advantage?

Maybe its just me, but I don’t pay too much attention to fighters below lightweight. So when I first heard about this matchup, I viewed Hamed as roughly the same size as PBF. Those small guys all look alike. ;-)

But in reality, PBF has a 4 inch / 8 inch height / reach advantage. He’s just a much bigger guy. As was Barrera, albeit not as much.

I know of no other fighter who is judged so much by how he fought against larger opponents. I mean, Duran was dominated by Hagler, imo, but all you hear is how held his ground and sneered at a naturally bigger HOFer. The Prince gets similarly schooled by HOFer Barrera...and all we hear about is how he was exposed.

Maybe that’s his fault. He wanted the big money fights and no one really pays too much attention to bantamweights. Be that as it may, it just seems that this fact is always overlooked.