{"id":268348,"date":"2025-11-17T19:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/268348\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T19:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:40:09","slug":"prince-naseem-hamed-names-the-fighter-who-was-his-biggest-inspiration-he-was-everything-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/268348\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Naseem Hamed names the fighter who was his ‘biggest inspiration’: “He was everything to me”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naseem Hamed has inspired countless fighters coming up off the back of his world-title winning campaign, but there were men before him who he looked up to himself.<\/p>\n

\u2018Prince\u2019 Naseem took the sport by storm during the decade between 1992 and 2002<\/a>, dominating the featherweight division and only suffering defeat in his penultimate contest against Marco Antonio Barrera. He retired one year later after beating Manuel Calvo in London, adding that name to a list of triumphs which also included Steve Robinson, Kevin Kelley and Tom Johnson.<\/p>\n

Speaking at this year\u2019s British Boxing Board of Control Southern Area Awards, where he was a guest of honour, Hamed took to the stage to celebrate those in attendance, praising Herol Graham in particular.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I just say, I just want to big up Herol \u2018Bomber\u2019 Graham. My biggest inspiration in boxing is stood up. Herol was everything to me. He\u2019s one of the best fighters this country has ever had. I love him, I go and see him, and I\u2019m so proud that he\u2019s sat beside me tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ceremony \u2014 streamed live from the Leonardo Royal London City<\/a> via official media partner Seconds Out \u2014 saw Hamed, Graham, George Groves, Colin McMillan and more former champions in attendance, with the likes of Moses Itauma and Ellie Scotney representing the new school.<\/p>\n

Graham, trained by Brendan Ingle, challenged for world honours on three occasions, falling short each time and thus being remembered as one of the greatest British fighters to not reach that end goal. For nine years and 38 fights, \u2018Bomber\u2019 remained undefeated before losing his European Middleweight title to Sumbu Kalambay 1987.<\/p>\n

His notable wins include Jimmy Price, Ayub Kalule and Vinny Pazienza. Graham also took future Hall of Famer, Mike McCallum, the distance in 1989, though ultimately lost a split decision. He has battled with his mental health since retiring, though seems in a good place today \u2014 and there was perhaps no better surroundings for the fighting legend than amongst his peers and admirers this weekend in London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naseem Hamed has inspired countless fighters coming up off the back of his world-title winning campaign, but there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-268348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}