It has been over 22 years since flamboyant featherweight, Naseem Hamed was massively upset by Mexico’s Marco Antonio Barrera in Las Vegas after he was sent home with the first loss of his career by a unanimous points decision. The fight took place on April 7th in 2001 at the MGM Grand, the site that has hosted many well known fights over the years.
Barrera had been making a solid comeback since his two back to back defeats to Junior Jones and was the WBO super-bantamweight champion before moving up to featherweight to challenge Hamed. He was the underdog at 3-1 and many thought that the concussive power of the Sheffield born star was going to tell the story. But nobody, at least those who supported Hamed, was prepared for the experience and skill level that Marco bought to the ring when he was able to counter and hit his opponent with clean punch after clean punch for nearly every round . The Mexican stated after that Hamed’s previous opponents made the mistake of trying to finish him off whenever they put him in trouble which caused them to get caught themselves. So, he wanted to play it safe and rack up the points. With the bout being scored by three American judges, I guess he doubted that he would have been duped by them. And he wasn’t when scores of 115-112,116-111 and 115-112 were announced.
People have wondered over the years that, had Hamed been trained by Brendan Ingle, the trainer he had grew up with and took guided him for most of his career had been in his corner that night then would the outcome have been any different.
I do not think so.
Ingle and Hamed parted ways in 1998 even though the former WBO, IBF and WBA champion initially denied that was the case. Then he blamed the parting on a book authored by Ingle called ‘The Paddy And The Prince’ in which it claimed that Naseem became seduced by the money that he had made in his career more than anything else.
Hamed has been quoted as saying:
“I think one of the biggest things that split us was the book. That was one of the final things that made me feel the way that I did.
“The book was a big thing in my eyes, he revealed quite a few things, personal stuff. You don’t do what he did. I think – and my parents and everybody think – that it was totally out of order what he did.”
In any case, what we need to recall is that even when Hamed had been under Ingle’s tutoring, his unorthodox boxing style of using his reflexes and upper body movement to dodge punches while keeping his hands low was already exploited by the likes of Daniel Alicea and Kevin Kelley who were able to put him down. Also even then, he could not get out of the bad habit of lunging while throwing his hands which caused him to be frequently off balance. Those were things that plagued him from beginning to the end when he decided to walk away after looking uninterested in what was supposed to be a comeback fight against Manuel Calvo on May 18th, 2002.
Hamed cited that problems with his hands was the reason. But I lean toward doubt that, that is the whole truth after looking so fed up in the Calvo fight. Marco Antonio Barrera was just the all round better and smarter man that night in 2001. I believe that not knocking Hamed out quickly, but giving him a full humiliating 12 round boxing lesson broke his heart and irreparably damaged his desire.
Not that should ever contradict the opinion that he is still one of Britain’s best ever boxers.
