Prince Naseem Hamed The Champion of Champions in the Feather wei
When boxing fans talk about Naseem Hamed these days they will mostly say he
was an overrated cocky fighter who fought nobodies his entire career before
stepping up and being easily defeated by the great Marco Antonio Barrera but was
his career spent fighting nobodies or is the Prince being treated badly by anti
British fans of the sport we love?
As of 2010 the Prince is still not in the
HOF which is a travesty so I would have to assume that the British Featherweight
who ruled at 126lbs and made millions in a division that had never seen that
amount of money before is being forgotten because sadly he has a Sheffield
accent.
Now onto his overrated resume which is filled with
nobodies.
On September 30 1995 21 year old Naseem Hamed became WBO FW
Champion of the world when he went into Welshman Steve Robinsons
backyard(Cardiff) and easily won every round before stopping him in the
eighth.
Robinson held the WBO title for two and a half years and made Seven
defences of that title including wins over former WBC FW Champion Paul Hodkinson
& three weight World Champion Duke McKenzie before he met Naz.This was a
very good win for young Naz.
After a couple of soft defences Naz then
defended his title against Manuel Medina,yeah the guy who was a five time FW
World Champion.
Biased haters will tell you that the 25 year old Medina was
past his best when he fought Naz but will fail to tell you that Medina would go
on to win a version of the FW title another three times after Naseem Hamed beat
him up and made the ringside doctor stop the fight.
After destroying the
over matched Molina in 2 rds Hamed then started 97 with a unification fight with
American Tom Boom Boom Johnson,a year in which Hamed would have five title
fights and win all five by KO.
Johnson was the IBF FW Champion who had made
11 title defences and hadnt tasted defeat for over five years when he met Hamed
in February of 97.Like most fighters who fought prime Naz he was knocked out in
eight and Hamed was now a unified IBF/WBO FW Champion.
After knocking out
former three time world title challenger Billy Hardy in the first rd and making
a couple of easy defences Naz then made his way across the pond to fight Kevin
Kelley in his backyard at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Kelley the
Flushing Flash was 47-1 when he fought Naz and was the former WBC FW Champion
who had reigned for two years whos sole defeat was almost three years before the
Hamed fight.
In a FOTY candidate both fighters where dropped before Naz
finally knocked out Kelly in the 4th round to take his record to 29-0 with an
amazing 27 of those wins coming by KO.
Next was Wilfredo Vazquez a former
three weight World Champion and the current WBA FW Champion who was stripped of
his title because the WBA did not want their title to be unified with the WBO
thus denying Hamed the chance to hold all four FW titles.
Vazquez had made
nine defences of his WBA 122lb title and four defences of his WBA FW title when
Naz knocked him out in seven rounds in April 1998.
After winning an easy
decision over iron chinned Wayne McCullough and then knocking out Paul Ingle in
11 rds(Ingle would go on to get wins over Manuel Medina & Junior Jones)Hamed
then unified his WBO title yet again when he fought WBC FW Champion Cesar Soto
in Detroit at the end of 99.
Soto knocked out Jose Luis Castillo in two rds
and had just won the WBC five months before when he was easily outpointed
against Hamed with his record now standing at 33-0.
Next came Vuyani Bungu
the former IBF 122lb Champion who had made 11 defences of that title and was
unbeaten in 19 fights when he stepped into the ring with Hamed.
Hamed knocked
him out in four and then defends against Augie Sanchez the man who beat Floyd
Mayweather Jr in the Amateur ranks and hadnt lost in 10 fights when he stepped
into the ring with Hamed in August 2000,sadly for him he would leave the ring on
a stretcher as Naz knocks him out in four.
Naseem Hamed made 15 defences of
his WBO FW title and unified it with the WBC & IBF and also destroyed the
WBA Champion but because of politics he wasnt able to hold every title in the
division.
Ring Magazine Featherweight ratings of Hameds opponents when he
faced them:
Steve Robinson #3
Manuel Medina #3
Tom Johnson #1
Kevin
Kelley #5
Wilfredo Vazquez #4
Cesar Soto #5
Vuyani Bungu #4
World
Title fights record : 16-0 with 14 KOs
http://madavarent.blogspot.com/2011/09/prince-naseem-hamed-champion-of.html
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