The first time I watched Prince Naseem Hamed train, my jaw couldn\u2019t have dropped any faster if he had hit me with one of his lassoing uppercuts. I had followed all his fights on TV, of course. But to see him in the flesh in September 1994, a year before he became world champion, was an altogether more visceral and mesmeric experience.<\/p>\n
Hamed\u2019s punches sounded like firecrackers welcoming in the new year as they smashed into the pads. He was almost impossible to hit. And, most staggering of all, despite standing 5ft 4in tall and weighing only nine stone, he would bully far bigger men in sparring \u2013 including fighters such as John Keeton, who went on to become the British cruiserweight champion \u2013 until my great uncle, Brendan Ingle, called time.<\/p>\n
\u201cNaz can box orthodox and he can box southpaw,\u201d Brendan would tell me, and anyone else who visited the St Thomas\u2019 boys and girls club in Sheffield. \u201cHe can switch hit. He is going to win world titles at every weight from featherweight to super-middleweight. The only person that will beat him is himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Naturally, there was a touch of the blarney about this. But only a touch. The more I watched Hamed \u2013 and I would go to the gym every couple of weeks as a student \u2013 the more I became convinced he would win titles in multiple weight divisions.<\/p>\n
But even then there were tensions, which are explored in an enjoyable new biopic, Giant, starring Pierce Brosnan and Amir El-Masry. The film charts Hamed\u2019s rise from the age of seven under my great uncle\u2019s guidance, before the collapse of their relationship. And it also asks the pertinent question: how much is talent God-given, and how much is shaped?<\/p>\n
So what was it like watching James Bond play a family member? In truth, a little surreal and sometimes downright spooky. Brosnan\u2019s Ingle was a little more pushy, and unkempt, than I remember. But his tone and twang, Dublin tinged with Sheffield, and his mannerisms were uncanny.<\/p>\n
As the film also shows, Brendan wasn\u2019t only a trainer: he was a social worker, community glue, patriarch and philosopher rolled into one. \u201cWhat\u2019s the biggest motivator in life?\u201d he once asked me. \u201cMoney?\u201d I replied. \u201cNo, sex.\u201d And then there would come a story, of a boxer distracted by a woman. A fight lost. An opportunity squandered.<\/p>\n
Pierce Brosnan, who played James Bond in four films between 1995 and 2002, as Brendan Ingle. Photograph: Sam Talor<\/p>\n
Brendan also loved to tell people that \u201cboxing at its worst is a dirty, rotten, horrible, prostitutioning, vindicative game \u2026 but it\u2019s only like life. And life isn\u2019t fair.\u201d But he knew better than anyone that it transformed the lives of many kids, especially those who had been in trouble.<\/p>\n
Brendan used to say he had seen it all before. And he pretty much had. But Hamed\u2019s behaviour and ego eventually became too much. The film ends with the pair splitting after Hamed\u2019s wild victory over Kevin Kelley at Madison Square Garden in 1997. In fact, their relationship staggered on until the Wayne McCullough fight the following year.<\/p>\n
However since the film\u2019s release on Friday, old wounds have been reopened. Hamed has spoken about how Brendan rebuffed his attempts to build bridges and also suggested that Brendan was obsessed with money.<\/p>\n
Hamed is completely right on the first point \u2013 and totally wrong on the second. Was Brendan worried that Hamed\u2019s brother, Riath, was turning Naseem\u2019s head when it came to Brendan getting less of a cut of fight purses? Yes. In fact he called Riath a snake and didn\u2019t want him in the gym. Did he feel that he deserved to be fairly rewarded for the years he had put into training Hamed? Absolutely.<\/p>\n
But as my cousin, Dominic Ingle, reminded me, Brendan never moved away from his modest house in Wincobank. And while he bought an iron gate for his home once he had made some money, that was about it.<\/p>\n
Hamed and Ingle in the corner on the night he defeated Wayne McCullough, the pair\u2019s last fight together. Photograph: Nicks Potts\/Action Images<\/p>\n
Meanwhile another fighter, Johnny Nelson, responded to Hamed\u2019s comments by telling the story of how Brendan secretly gave him \u00a3250 a week for 13\u00a0months when he wasn\u2019t earning. The one proviso? Nelson wasn\u2019t allowed to tell anyone \u2013 and if he did, he would have to pay the money back.<\/p>\n
What Brendan really craved most of all wasn\u2019t money. It was respect. Respect from Hamed. Respect for his unique training methods. Respect for being an uneducated Paddy who had had it the hard way.<\/p>\n
And while Hamed\u2019s reputation has tumbled since retirement, his career deserves more respect. His solitary loss to Marco Antonio Barrera in 2001 has become a one-fight referendum on his talents. But by then he was long past his best. He didn\u2019t train hard enough and overly relied on his power. And rewatching the documentary, The Little Prince, The Big Fight, his ego was rampant. The Hamed of 1995 would have thumped the Hamed of 2001. And, I believe, Barrera too.<\/p>\n
Incidentally, while the film shows Ingles cheering when Hamed lost, that wasn\u2019t the case. They didn\u2019t watch the fight. However Dominic tells me that when the pair split, his dad actually cried.<\/p>\n
Ingle with his fighters Johnny Nelson and Hamed at his Sheffield gym in 1993. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Before walking away, he says that Brendan told Hamed that he would train more world champions in the future, only for Naz to scoff. \u201cLike who?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJohnny Nelson and Junior Witter,\u201d came the response.<\/p>\n
\u201cJohnny Nelson?\u201d replied Hamed. \u201cHe\u2019s already been beaten twice. And Junior Witter is never going to be world champion \u2013 you\u2019re off your head.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Dominic, the look in his dad\u2019s eye suggested he knew that Hamed might be right. \u201cMy dad was in tears actually,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd Naz was going: \u2018Look, he\u2019s upset, you need to comfort him.\u2019<\/p>\n
But me and my brother, John, were like: \u201cNo, you comfort him, Naz. Because you upset him, not us.\u201d<\/p>\n
History ended up proving Ingle right. First Nelson become a world champion. Then Witter. And after that came Kell Brook and Abdul-Bari Awad.<\/p>\n