IN January 2015, Prince Naseem Hamed was the guest on the Boxing News podcast just weeks after receiving news that he was to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame later that year.
Mischievous and completely carefree, the old Hamed charm was evident the moment he strolled into our former office on Cannon Street in the City of London. The only clue to Hamedโs self-awareness was the arm he draped over his stomach from time to time in an instinctive effort to disguise the weight heโd gained as excited onlookers peered through the glass walls of the meeting room to get a glimpse of sporting royalty.
Mentally, Naseem Hamed was in pristine shape. He was delighted to discuss those famous nights when he swaggered and swayed before destroying his opponents with missiles launched with ludicrous aplomb. The stories he told flowed just as effortlessly, with relish and abandon and no sense of regret that so often distorts a fighterโs memory.
One subject, though, was not as easy to talk about as others. But that didnโt mean he didnโt want to talk about it.
This interview โ never before seen in print and thought to be lost โ was carried out three years before the death of Brendan Ingle, the mentor who oversaw Hamedโs passage from child prodigy to international superstar before they parted company in bitter circumstances.
Hamedโs desire to patch things up with Ingle was clear. The two would never be reunited.
Naz talked at length about the lone loss to Marco Antonio Barrera in April 2001 and explained why he turned his back on the sport following an unimpressive victory over Manuel Calvo 13 months later.
As well as the fights that thrilled the world, he focused on those that got away, against Floyd Mayweather, Acelino Freitas and Juan Manuel Marquez, explaining why they never happened and what he believed would have occurred if they had.
After the interview, the British boxing legend asked to see the Boxing News archives, where he spent a substantial amount of time reading the reports from his glory days with that smile still firmly on his face.
Letโs start at the beginning, before the world titles and superstardom. How did you get into boxing?
It was plain and simple for me because I lived just up the road, literally, from a boxing club and that was Brendan Ingleโs boxing club, St Thomasโ. At the time, you had amazing fighters like Herol โBomberโ Graham and he was really the focal point of the gym, he was who the trainers looked at and said, โYouโve got to try and fight like this.โ We were all, really and truly, clones of Herol but some of us did our own thing and took it a step further and developed something else, which I did.
That was at the age of seven. By the time I got to 11, in my eyes, I was ready to turn professional because Iโd been doing it for four years and I was that confident. In my first year as an amateur I won a British Schoolboy National title, so I was British champion at 11. I was up and ready to turn pro.
You must look back very fondly at those early days.
I donโt forget them. Theyโre quite vivid in my mind, with everything that happened as an amateur. Itโs funny, I remember the seven national titles that I won and everything in between. From a very young age I was just wishing my life away to get to 18, just to turn professional. Suddenly, I became 18 and it was 1992. The year of the Olympics in Barcelona. A lot of people thought I should have stayed amateur for that but I just couldnโt wait to become a professional. I didnโt want anything to hold me back. I remember predicting at the age of 11 in a boxing magazine that Iโd be a world champion at the age of 21 and a multi-millionaire.
Really and truly, I was disappointed that I didnโt fight for a British title. In my eyes, the best belt and what remains the best belt, is the Lonsdale Belt. Itโs a beautiful-looking belt.
Despite that you made an almost instant impact. I remember in 1994, when you fought Vincenzo Belcastro for the European bantamweight title. You got some stick for that when you dropped him and stood over him, taunting him.
I got a lot of stick. In the whole of them times I was so different in the ring to what I was out. I was a monster in the ring. Thatโs what you needed to be. At that particular time, it was remembering what all the great fighters did in the ring, and it gets to a certain point in the fight, and you want to do what they did. Iโd watched this video, a.k.a. Cassius Clay, every day for 15 years, and I mean every single day.
I won the European title at 20 years old. Imagine what that felt like. I hadnโt even fought for the British title but there I was winning the European title against someone everyone knew was world class. Through the fight I was โ I wonโt say arrogant โ letโs say instead, supremely confident. When I came out in the last round, it looked like the first round because I had so much energy.
That fight gave people their first glimpse into the future you always knew was coming, that you were going to rule the world. When that moment came, a little over a year later when you challenged Steve Robinson, you were absolutely flawless. Any nerves that night?
I had people with me before that fight, throughout that day, very close people and people from the gym and my trainers, who knew I was going to become world champion that day. There was no doubts in my mind that crept in. Thatโs what was good about me. The minute you get those kind of doubts, any kind of doubts that just peer in, itโs not a good sign. I didnโt have anything like that, my mind was as a strong as anything, the self-belief, the will to win.
There was no doubt I was going to beat Steve Robinson even though Iโd seen him on TV and thought, โHeโs a big guyโ. Heโs cut to shreds, heโs very strong, heโs defended his title I donโt know how many times. Looking back on it now, itโs amazing that I wasnโt even a featherweight when I won the [WBO] featherweight championship of the world. I walked into the ring as a super-bantamweight and won the title in that fashion. I thank Frank Warren so much; he was the one who asked if I wanted to fight Steve Robinson. Of course I wanted to fight Steve Robinson!
At 21 I wanted to be world champion and Iโll never forget Frank Warren for helping that dream come true. It was unbelievable.
Most of us, at the age of 21, are just getting to grips with adulthood. You were a world champion and household name at 21. What is that kind of fame like to cope with at such a young age?
People talk about this fame aspect all the time. I personally never saw myself as this famous guy. Maybe itโs because I was brought up in a certain way and my feet were on the ground. Even today, people still come up and tell me I gave them great memories, that I was a superstar. But Iโm not just saying this, I never really felt that the fame really hit me. There were all these celebrity bashes that I could have gone to but I had no interest in them. I still donโt. Some fighters will go to the opening of an envelope, but Iโm cool in the gang doing my own thing.
It was a good feeling to get recognised, donโt get me wrong. How can it not be a good feeling to walk around the planet for five or six years as a world champion? Getting out of bed, every morning for years, not a couple of weeks or a month, but for quite a few years, waking up every morning and going to the gym, going on holiday or whatever, being with your wife and kids and know that youโre a world champion. Itโs an amazing feeling and Iโm sure that the fighters today who are world champions are feeling that. That can only last for a certain amount of time but for me it lasted for quite a while. I enjoyed it big time while it did.
Your feet are firmly on the ground now. Do you wish you had the maturity and wisdom that youโve got now back then, or was part of the magic created by you being just 21 years old, a world champion, and full of confidence?
Iโll go with you there. I was that confident and I was so willing to let people know what I was going to do in the sport and who I was going to be. I think if I was a different person in any way I honestly donโt know if I could have been that person that achieved all them things. No, I was a guy full of spunk. I was ready and I was willing to show everyone.
Speaking of that confidence, how many times did you go arse over tit while you were practising your signature somersault into the ring?
[Laughs] Right. Iโll be honest now. Not very many! I swear to God. I struggled a little bit more with what I used to do before that, and there was a fight that was televised, when I did a vault over the ropes โ similar to what Chris Eubank used to do โ and I didnโt land properly. There was one time. I didnโt fall on my face but my balance was all wrong. But doing the flip over the ropes was a lot easier because all you had to do was stand up there on the side of the ring and get the right grip on the ropes. I couldnโt always get the right grip, though, because you couldnโt put your thumbs under the ropes because they were attached to the gloves, so it meant balancing with your thumb and your fingers and pulling the rope down to give you the force to do the flip over. Doing that was never a problem but bear in mind I was doing this in world title fights. I was taking the risk of falling over on my ankle or twisting my ankle and it going wrong.
So why put yourself under that pressure?
For me, it wasnโt a risk. I had to show the crowd, the viewers, that it was possible to do that. I was so confident of winning and that was just a small part of what I was about. I always tried to make the landing perfect but every now and again Iโd need an extra few steps [to get my balance back] which would always take me in the direction of my opponent. That was always a good opportunity to get a good look into their eyes. I used to love looking into my opponentโs eyes before I started flinging fists.
Did you ever look into anyoneโs eyes and feel anything other than confident? There must have been a fight where there was some nerves.
No, not at that stage. The only fight where I was even slightly concerned was obviously the fight where I lost [to Marco Antonio Barrera], but that was before the whole thing started, before training camp. It was an uphill struggle knowing that youโve got to lose two-and-a-half stone in eight weeks. Knowing that youโre going to have no power. That night, I didnโt do a somersault into the ring. They changed the gloves. I didnโt get them until 20-30 minutes before the fight. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong.
So Barrera was a fight you felt you could lose?
Absolutely not. In my heart of hearts I felt I was going to win. Even though I was weak and Iโd lost so much fluid and I knew it was going to be hard, I felt within me that, if I hit anybody, Iโm going to knock them out. I said to myself, โAre you telling me youโre not going to hit this guy?โ And I did hit him but it wasnโt like normal. Even then, I thought that I was going to throw one kind of shot and it would catch him and heโd go. But then the 12th round came along, then there was only a few seconds left, and then I realised that
I wasnโt. I realised it was the first time in 21 years that Iโd lost a fight.
That must have been crushing psychologically. Youโd gone through childhood and adulthood as an invincible man. That was in your psyche, that invincibility was part of you. All of a sudden that had gone. How did you come to terms with that?
The minute that the fight ended, I was still on my feet. I never got knocked down. I mean, there were a few shaky moments, Iโm not going to say there wasnโt [laughs]. But I never got knocked down. I never got cut. I never got smashed round the head where I thought, โOh my god Iโm in troubleโ. So there wasnโt one moment in the fight when I thought, โIโve really lost hereโ. Even when he got the decision right at the end, I didnโt feel like Iโd lost. The only way you really feel like youโve really lost in the sport of boxing, and I donโt mean losing on points, I mean losing, is when you get knocked the eff out. When youโre looking up from the canvas into the stars and youโre alone and youโre exposed. That didnโt happen to me. I went through my career without that. I even came back and won the [IBO] world title and said, Iโm gonna chill for a bit. Honestly, I never thought, โHow am I going to cope with this?โ
I always said when I get beat by a guy I would put my hands up and say you was better than me tonight and tonight only. The fact is he [Barrera] was current, he was active โ I wasnโt active โ and he was on the way up where he was ready to take anyone. I had to lose two-and-a-half stone and I drained myself. Thatโs it, thatโs the be all and end all. I was not saddened by it.
I lost one fight, I was still the same confident guy โ I still am. I just had this sense of, โWho really cares, so what?โ He didnโt hurt me or knock me out. Iโve never felt sorry for myself. It always affected those people who wanted me to win so badly more than itโs ever affected me.
Looking back, do you blame yourself for the amount of weight you were left to lose?
No. Iโll be honest, when I got the call to say there was a date and an opponent, I said there and then to HBO, โThis is going to be impossible to make the weight.โ Then in the next breath, โBut if you give me more money then itโs going to be cool in the gang.โ You know what, Iโd have fought King Kong for the money I was getting that night. Thatโs the thing in boxing, thereโs always going to be that carrot dangled in front of certain fighters before every fight. It was hard, but I never got hurt.
Throughout your career?
Thank god I never got hit with one of those [singing] Oops up-side the head, say oops up-side the head kind of shots. And thank god I didnโt. Iโm not going to say I never got hit with nothing because I did take my fair share, letโs be honest [laughs]. But that night that weโve already talked about, against Steve Robinson, they said I was so good that night โ and it was raining โ that even the rain couldnโt hit me. I didnโt get wet.
There was talk of a fight with Floyd Mayweather when he was at the start of his career.
There were never any negotiations. He always moved up in weight. There was a glimpse of him at super-featherweight then he moved up to lightweight. Then he moved up again and kept moving up and moving up.
Me and him were good friends from back in the day. I used to see him when I was just in America in โ97 and heโd just turned pro. Iโd been a pro for two years before I even met him. At the time he was like, โHow the hell are you coming from your country into our country and on HBO and getting paid so much money and weโre not?โ But he was always really friendly. Then he took over the sport and all of sport.
Would he still be unbeaten if youโd met when he was at super-feather?
I canโt say that he would be, no. I was very confident, I was very powerful, I was very fast. I donโt know to be honest. Heโs overly skilled, his skill isโฆ immense. Those defensive skills, wow. And he developed those skills from when he was a kid.
Another opponent who got away was Juan Manuel Marquez. He was your mandatory for a long time.
Great fighter. He was my mandatory. For me, at that particular time, it wouldnโt have been that hard to beat him. I would have felt confident in beating him because he had that come forward style. I would have boxed him and hit him with the kind of shots heโd never been hit with. I was happy to fight him but my promoter at the time didnโt want me to take that route. I honestly feel that it wasnโt because he didnโt think I could beat him. Marquez wasnโt no name then. He werenโt world champion or regarded anything like he is now. But I do think heโs a great fighter.
Acelino Freitas?
We was trained by the same trainer, Oscar Suarez. He was an amazing trainer by the way. But directly after I fizzled out from boxing, Oscar had Acelino and did great with Acelino. As far as me and him fighting, that was never on the cards. He was heavier than me. A good fighter and a good puncher.
You mention Oscar Suarez and you were also with Manny Steward for a while. Before those of course was Brendan Ingle. The Ingles have said that you reached a point in your career when training wasnโt as important for you, that you would turn up to the gym late and demand to be trained late at night. What are your memories of that particular time?
[Pauses] At one point, if youโd have said to me, โWho was like your second father?โ Iโd have said Brendan Ingle, because he spent a hell a lot of time with me.
I felt like he spent more time with me than with his own family. We were very, very close. So when I found out that he was writing a book, it really, really hit me. Someone youโve been with a really long time, someone that youโve put all your trust in, and theyโve wrote a lot of negative things about you and theyโre not true, someone you regarded as family. I couldnโt make any sense of it. Iโd made him proud. Iโd made the gym proud. I was the first world champion from the gym. Iโd made money for him.
But Iโll never forget the time he spent with me and what he taught me. It went two ways. He did so much for me and taught me so much. It wasnโt a one-sided thing.
I was really close to John Ingle. John was with me as a kid and as a professional through to winning and defending world titles. For me, I was getting focused by a mentor from Brendanโs side but John Ingle played the biggest part throughout the whole of that.
Iโve spoken to John. Iโve asked to come to Sheffield and make up with Brendan. Sometimes things are supposed to be left alone and this might be the case here. But I would to love to meet up with Brendan and apologise for all the things he thought I did wrong.
Was it true that the training became less important to you?
I donโt think so. Was I there a bit late? Maybe. But I donโt remember walking in late, not really late. I was always in the gym ready for sparring. I didnโt believe in warming up, Iโd just go in the gym, get changed and go straight in the ring. All I wanted to do was fight.
I donโt believe I entered the gym too late to spar. Iโm an honest guy, so would I say as I got older, as I was defending world titles, I wasnโt training as hard? No, I wouldnโt say that.
Did you get to a point where you took your skills for granted?
I realised at a certain age, a young age, that I had this immense punching power. No matter who I hit I was going to dismantle. It tells you a lot about a fighter that if you can knock guys out in the first round, the middle rounds or the late rounds. So I knew I had that power at any time but that shouldnโt take anything away from training. If I had my time again, I probably would change. I would be a bit more professional but, at the time, I didnโt always feel I was in a professional set up. It was the same gym Iโd been in since I was a kid, and even when I was world champion, there was a lot of kids in the gym. It was always packed and I always felt like one of many. I was never singled out or given special coaching. Sometimes that helped but there were times when I felt like I should be going to a training camp and with world class sparring partners; I wanted to spar to the head. Leaving the gym was one of the best things I could have done at the time, simply because I then got that one-on-one training.
So there was no regrets about leaving the Ingle Gym? Some presume it was the wrong decision.
No, but I regret how we split up. I canโt stand the thought of that family not being able to look at me anymore or want to talk to me again. But I had to make a decision back then and I made the decision.
You mention that passion for fighting but that ultimately went away. There were rumours all the time about a comeback. How close was that?
I was never, ever close. The rumours were just to have people on and get people excited and people did get excited! Would I have loved to have come back? I probably would. It was something I was good at and people appreciated me doing it. But I knew I was not going to come back. I had reached that point of my life, I had stepped out of the ring at 28. But when did that passion stop? I donโt know but during the last few fights I could feel it creeping in, that feeling of doing the same thing for so many years. I wanted a rest from it. I always said when I get to 28, Iโm going to be one of the smartest fighters and stop fighting. There might have been a lot more money out there but I was done, it was finished. I did exactly the right thing.
You were an astonishing talent, one who changed boxing in this country. Did the sport get the best out of you?
Yes, I think so. I think it had the best years out of me. Could there have been more? Definitely. But in my heart of hearts, at the age of 28, after losing and then taking a year out and coming back, I just felt it was the time. Every time I used my hands, theyโd really hurt. I had to have cortisone injections in my hand every time I fought so I didnโt feel that pain. Doing that before every single fight, calling the doctor in and having cortisone injections in the back of your wrist with a needle bigger than this table is not right. I thought, at the time, Iโve done something in this sport of boxing that was enough to say, โDo you know what guys? Iโve had a great time, Iโve enjoyed myself in the sun and shined for many, many years. Iโm out, yo, Iโm out.โ But the whole thing of not having the passion, or not having the motivation to get out of bed once youโve got money, or not wanting to go into a smelly gym, that wasnโt what made me stop. That wasnโt the case.
You seem very content. Sometimes you meet people who are spending too much time in yesterday and thereโs no sense of that with you at all. No sense of regret – is that fair to say?
I donโt know if I can justify having regrets after all that I achieved. I donโt know if thereโs anything where I can say to myself, โDo you really feel that bad that you regret that?โ I suppose I should have been wiser, in a way, before the Barrera fight. I should have known better. โYou guys have been waiting and waiting for this fight. Iโve been offering you this fight for years.โ Barrera wouldnโt fight me. Then all of a sudden, they knew their time had arrived. Iโd boxed Augie Sanchez, Iโd broke my hand in the fight, it was a devastating knockout. I said before and after the fight I wanted to fight Barrera. But if Iโd have been wiser and not allowed myself to be shoved in a corner because of all this moneyโฆ
But I wanted to prove myself whatever condition I was in. I didnโt want people to accuse me of not fighting him, he was one of the best pound-for-pound fighters, a world champion. I felt I had to take that fight.
Then there was the wiser part of me saying, โIโm not going to make weight, Iโm going to be drained, Iโm going to kill yourself and have no ammunition. I have to say no.โ But of course I didnโt say that.
But the reason itโs not a regret is because it doesnโt bother me. Not in a way that Iโve ever lost any sleep over it or anything like that. I made that decision at the time. And you know what? I bet thereโs a million fighters out there who would like to be sitting in my seat now.
Getting into the Hall of Fame is testament to that mindset and all that you achieved. What does it mean to you when I say, Prince Naseem Hamed, Inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame?
It means absolutely everything. You say itโs testament to all I achieved but I think itโs a bit more than that. I think itโs how I achieved it, I think itโs how I fought, itโs the kind of stuff I did before the fights, during fight week, at press conferences, how I used to react when fighters used to say certain things, it was the whole colourful character that was so confident in the sport at the time. I believe I was a breath of fresh air. When the Hall of Fame called me to tell me, they asked for a quote. I said, โItโs an absolute honour, itโs the phone call that every fighter would love.โ Not every fighter gets that call. To know that Iโm going to be set in stone, that my name will live on forever and people will never ever forget how I used to fight. I made people smile and say, โI like that, Iโll watch him again.