Former Wincobank stablemates Johnny Nelson and ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed have had a public spat following the latter’s comments regarding late, great trainer, Brendan Ingle, who guided both men to world honours during the 1990’s. Now, Nelson has claimed that he could ‘ruin’ Hamed, if he wished.
Hailed as one of Britain’s best ever trainers, Ingle shaped ‘Naz’ into one of the nation’s most entertaining fighters of all time but after working together for 18 years, the pair split due to financial disagreements.
Ingle passed away in 2018, without ever settling his feud with Hamed, who brought that fallout to the mainstream once again this year ahead of the release of his biopic, Giant, which was centred around his relationship with Ingle.
Upon hearing suggestions that Ingle was ‘money obsessed’, Nelson hit out at the former featherweight ruler, only for Hamed to respond by labelling Nelson as a ‘snake’, in a talkSPORT interview.
“I always realised afterwards, when I analysed Johnny, there was only ever one snake in that gym.
“It’s unbelievable how much of an over-achiever in boxing what Johnny did because, firstly, Johnny needs to realise the truth about him and his career.
“And that is, without me coming from the same gym as him and opening the doors, I begged Frank Warren.
“Johnny Nelson was supposed to be called—he was supposed to be the entertainer. That was his ring—that was his fight name. Who did he ever entertain?”
Speaking on ‘Fight Your Corner, in partnership with Midnite’, Nelson has now claimed that he could ‘ruin’ Hamed, before declaring that people in their shared hometown of Sheffield are appreciative of his efforts to defend Ingle and oppose Hamed.
“There isn’t one [a relationship with Naseem Hamed]. I saw something that I disagreed with, and because it was Naz, people let him do it. If you slagged off Cus D’amato to Mike Tyson, you wouldn’t get away with it. That’s the same with me and Brendan Ingle.
“Naz said that ‘Johnny is a snake’ – I thought, ‘do you know some of the things I could drop on you, I could ruin you!’.
“I said my piece, the way he spoke about Brendan was unforgivable.
“People in Sheffield were coming up to me in Sheffield and saying well done for sticking up for Brendan. In Sheffield, you can’t get away with that s**t.”
