He's due to meet some half decent British bloke sometime, after a long time out. Does anyone think he can recapture his form that saw him beat Tommy Johnson and thingy Robinson with ease ?. Or is he simply not up to it anymore ?. Personally, I think Hamed lost his way when he sacked Brendan Ingle as his coach, and got his brother to manage him. He was always cocky to say the least, but after that period he got arrogant and complacent. So I'm not so sure.
Complacent is a good word to describe him I think. When he was first coming up I enjoyed watching him box, for all his arrogance and ego - but he's hardly made the jump from British sports cult figure to international boxing superstar, has he? Which is a shame, because he has - or had - all the talent in the world.
I hope not. Ali was brash in a good way, brash when men who looked like him weren't ever supposed to be brash. And he stood for something bigger than sport, even when it cost him his chosen line of work during his prime. This guy Naseem's just a brash clown.
Naseem, since I've been watching him had always been a poor fighter. It just helped that he had a big hype machine behind him (like many average/poor fighters). It was nice to see a real fighter like Barrera teach him a lesson.
Buuuump thread from ancient times. He'll never make a decent comeback, but fu'k, he was fun to watch in the 90s. Loved his attitude, loved his entertainment value... boxing fans who complain about the likes of Naz and then wonder why UFC is more popular now need to sort themselves out IMO. [youtube]pfUFYtXNN0A[/youtube] [youtube]3G_vmGU-ooA[/youtube]
I saw him interviewed at a fight a while ago, jeez he'd piled on the pounds. There was a documentary on the Barrera fight. They showed them preparing for the fight. One of the scenes has Naz watching the TV, smoking a cigar joking about what round he'll knock him out. Then it cuts to Barrera training like crazy in the mountains. Sigh