{"id":402150,"date":"2026-01-11T08:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T08:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/402150\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T08:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T08:04:12","slug":"the-whole-world-can-think-whatever-they-want-naseem-hamed-on-boxing-racism-and-his-greatest-regret-boxing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/402150\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The whole world can think whatever they want\u2019 \u2013 Naseem Hamed on boxing, racism and his greatest regret | Boxing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naseem Hamed<\/a> carries himself with a stately grandeur these days. Having settled his considerable bulk into a comfortable chair he pauses meaningfully. We look at each other intently and it\u2019s hard to believe the incorrigible little \u201cNaz fella\u201d, the swaggering Prince Naseem who became a world champion 30 years ago and changed British boxing forever with his dazzling aptitude for fighting and showmanship, is 51 now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the one thing you need to understand,\u201d Hamed says as he remembers Brendan Ingle\u2019s famous old gym<\/a> in Sheffield. \u201cThe minute I walked through the doors of that boxing club, that was it. I saw the ring, the bags, the lines on the floor, and I was immediately obsessed. This was going to be my life. I saw boxing as a game of tag. I\u2019m going to hit you and you can\u2019t hit me. It took speed and accuracy and I was really good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I first saw Hamed box in April 1992, when he knocked out Shaun Norman in two rounds on a Chris Eubank bill in Manchester. He was a Bambi-faced 18-year-old whose strutting exuberance belonged to a junior Strictly Come Dancing extravaganza. I could imagine a husky ballroom cry: \u201cRepresenting Sheffield and Yorkshire in the salsa, it\u2019s the young Prince \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years later, in May 1994, he became the European bantamweight champion in only his 12th professional fight when he humiliated Vincenzo Belcastro. The Italian had never been knocked down before but Hamed dropped\u00a0Belcastro with his first punches \u2013 a gorgeous right\u2013left combination that dumped the champion in a heap.<\/p>\n

The Prince could have ended the fight at any time but he stretched out the massacre over 12 rounds to showcase his brilliance and cruelty. At one point he stared at poor Belcastro\u2019s feet while thudding punches into his face. After flooring his victim again in the 11th, Hamed spat out more needless taunts and mesmerising combinations.<\/p>\n

Naseem Hamed celebrates with Brendan Ingle after his win over Wilfredo V\u00e1zquez in April 1998. Photograph: Nick Potts \/ Action Images<\/p>\n

Hugh McIlvanney, the great boxing writer, led the condemnation. Describing the Prince as \u201ca spectacular talent \u2026 his effortless mastery of Belcastro, a seasoned pro, was an astonishing feat\u201d, McIlvanney also deplored Hamed\u2019s \u201ceagerness to treat his demoralised victim as he were something no better than what you would wipe off your shoe\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hamed\u2019s remarkable boxing skills and complicated persona had been honed by Ingle who began working with him when Naz was only seven years old. Ingle promised he would become one of the greatest boxers in history and Hamed believed his Irish trainer with utter certainty. \u201cI was this little frail kid that didn\u2019t look like I could punch myself out of a paper bag. But I honestly believed I could change the sport. And I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new film, Giant<\/a>, starring Amir El-Masry as Hamed and Pierce Brosnan as Ingle, opened in British cinemas on Friday. It concentrates on the tangled relationship between Hamed and Ingle and the way in which money and fame unearthed previously hidden resentment. Hamed has helped publicise the film but he tells me he watched it with \u201cmixed emotions\u201d.<\/p>\n

His rise was packed with cultural significance. Hamed was the first leading British fighter who was neither black nor white, resulting in racial taunts and misguided descriptions of him as the country\u2019s \u201conly professional Asian boxer\u201d. He called himself a British and an Arab fighter, a Yorkshireman of pure Yemeni stock. When I first interviewed him in 1994 the 20-year-old said: \u201cI am a Muslim, from Yemen, but born and bred in Sheffield. That tells you everything you need to understand about me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naseem Hamed on his way to the ring at the London Olympia for his bout with Vuyani Bungu in March 2000. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

In Yorkshire in the early 1980s, when the National Front was active, it did not pay to be a little Arab boy. Ingle had often spun the story of how he first laid eyes on Naz \u2013 a tiny figure fighting off three much bigger white boys. \u201cI was on this double-decker bus,\u201d Ingle recalled, \u201cand we came to a halt outside the primary school. There\u2019s thuggery goin\u2019 on but the smallest lad, the boy I took to be Asian, is punching beautifully, hitting all three of them. They can\u2019t land a shot on him. I said to myself: \u2018That young fella can fight.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamed nods when I mention the National Front slogans seen in\u00a0Giant. \u201cIt was all over the walls near the gym, not far from my house. But the biggest problem wasn\u2019t just racism. The [boxing authorities] absolutely hated Brendan because he was Irish and producing fighters that were fighting different to everybody else in the country. We were hitting them and then moving.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for Brendan, how would I have been able to get really good? How would I have been able to learn the fundamentals of boxing, the footwork and confidence ingrained by him? And from the get-go it\u2019s like the world was against us. All the amateur officials made it harder for us but the minute I became 18 I\u2019d won enough cups and medals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to earn money for me and my family. I\u2019m the son of an\u00a0immigrant shopkeeper that came from Yemen. We don\u2019t have any wealth in our family tree. So one of my greatest achievements was to make a new life for my parents, my brothers and sisters and my cousins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naseem Hamed tangles with Marco Antonio Barrera in what would prove to be the only defeat of his career, in Las Vegas in April 2001. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian\/AP<\/p>\n

He and Ingle stopped working together at the peak of Hamed\u2019s career when they were full of rancour and bitterness towards each other. Ingle died in May 2018<\/a>, aged 77, having never spoken again to his most cherished boxer, and Hamed wants to make amends now. But he also wants to underline his own truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never saw Brendan as a father figure, even though he was trying to tell people he was like a father to me. I had my own father and I never lived in Brendan\u2019s house \u2013 as they mentioned in the film. He did ask me to move into his home with his wife and kids but I refused because I lived just up the road with my eight brothers and sisters and my parents. I\u2019m not going to jump ship from my own family. So a few\u00a0moments are really sad between us.\u201d<\/p>\n

In December 1997, Hamed stopped Kevin Kelley in a tumultuous world featherweight title fight<\/a> at Madison Square Garden in New York. It was the greatest night of Hamed\u2019s career \u2013 even though he was knocked down three times by Kelley \u2013 and the film\u00a0suggests that in the buildup the boxer had tried to kick Ingle out of his corner and not pay his trainer\u2019s purse.<\/p>\n

Hamed offers a different version: \u201cNobody actually knows this. But imagine [Ingle] coming to me before the biggest fight of my life, and saying: \u2018I want you to leave the gym.\u2019 It was before training camp had started and I\u2019ve got the hardest fight of my whole career. Kelley was a world champion when I was still a kid. I was also in his back yard.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I refused to leave the gym. It was such a bad thing to say that to me but Brendan never really trained me. His son, John, trained me. John spent time with me in that ring, on the pads, to make sure that I got them punches so accurate. This has never been spoken about.<\/p>\n

GIANT clip 1<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to Brendan: \u2018Your son is my trainer. He\u2019s the one that went into my corner as an amateur for 67\u00a0fights. He\u2019s the one I\u2019m comfortable with.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The division with Brendan is back but Hamed catches himself: \u201cRegardless, I always give him the credit of laying down them foundations. I always remember that \u2026 but in boxing these [enmities] can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds: \u201cThe whole world can think whatever they want about me. It\u2019s never going to affect me. I\u2019m not one to think: \u2018Oh, this film makes me look so bad and I shouldn\u2019t support it.\u2019 No. It\u2019s amazing they\u2019re making a film about you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giant offers two endings \u2013 with one imagining a happy reunion between the trainer and fighter. \u201cIt\u2019s make-believe,\u201d Hamed confirms but, in reality, he tried to forge a reconciliation with Ingle \u201cmany times. I reached out in so many different ways to make up with Brendan. I tried to sit down with him and apologise and ask him to forgive me. At the same time, I would have liked him to do the same, because it wasn\u2019t one-way traffic. I felt we needed that but he was so stubborn. I was getting more mature and realising that, if you fall out with somebody, let\u2019s make peace. We spent 18 years together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamed won his next six bouts after the Kelley fight, and his parting from Ingle, but he suffered his solitary defeat when he was humbled by the magnificent Marco Antonio Barrera<\/a> in Las Vegas in April 2001. He fought only once more, against the obscure Manuel Calvo, 13 months later.<\/p>\n

Naseem Hamed and Pierce Brosnan at the gala screening of Giant in London this week. Photograph: Kate Green\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Nearly 25 years later, he lists a string of reasons why he was so disappointing against Barrera \u2013 including a broken hand, another change of trainer and a savage weight-cut. Hamed does not sound haunted by the loss and, typically of a proud old fighter, says: \u201cWhen the final bell rang I was still on my feet. Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, the greatest fighters that ever lived, have been exposed, looking up at the stars. That never\u00a0happened to me and that\u2019s why that loss for me didn\u2019t really feel like a loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamed never fulfilled the grandest ambitions he and Ingle created but his good humour and health today is testament to his wisdom in retiring at 28. \u201cPeople said: \u2018Why would you stop so young?\u2019 But I\u2019d spent 10 years as a professional and 11 years as an amateur. Twenty-one years was enough. It will never be forgotten \u2013 not just in achievements but for young kids coming through seeing it as an inspiration. I had nothing else to prove.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d won five world title belts and then the Hall of Fame came and it\u2019s just amazing all these things happened to a young kid with big dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamed had also witnessed enough savagery in boxing. \u201cWe were taught by Brendan how dangerous the sport was,\u201d he says. \u201cThere were boards up in the gym that said \u2018Boxing can damage your health.\u2019 When you was as good as I was, and you avoided getting hit, it was different. But I chose my time to get out. I could have stayed and done whatever I wanted in the sport. But our philosophy was to hit and not get hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does he wish he could change anything he did in or out of the ring? After a long pause Hamed\u00a0says: \u201cThe biggest regret of\u00a0my life \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

He catches me leaning forward and says, with his old teasing twinkle: \u201cYou\u2019re so intrigued.\u201d<\/p>\n

I admit he\u2019s right while wondering if Hamed might say anything more about Ingle, or taunting some of his rivals. He leans back in his chair and smiles. \u201cThis is so far from what you\u2019re thinking but I\u2019ve been brought up with a beautiful religion.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo my biggest regret is that, when I was younger, I didn\u2019t always do my five prayers [a day]. But I do now and it\u2019s so important because the person I am today is the person I\u2019ve always wanted to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naseem Hamed carries himself with a stately grandeur these days. Having settled his considerable bulk into a comfortable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-402150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}