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May 2001
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EXPOSED BY A TRUE BOXING MASTER Barrera employed the old-style values of technical and tactical excellence to destroy Naseem Hamed's claims of greatness. GRAHAM HOUSTON reports from Las Vegas |
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BARRERA V HAMED
- Get Big Pic It was approaching midnight at the MGM Grand hotel and
casino in Las Vegas as I rode up to the 11th floor in the elevator with a weary
Emanuel Steward, the co-trainer of Prince Naseem Hamed, who had earlier in the
evening been pasted for 12 rounds by Marco Antonio Barrera in their
featherweight superfight. The Detroit
legend shook his head resignedly. “Everything I was afraid that could happen,
did happen,” he said. Could Naz do
any better in a rematch, I wondered. “There will have to be major
adjustments,” Steward said. “He can’t do it from out here [making a wide,
looping motion with his left hand] but I really don’t want to talk right
now.” What Steward
was saying, in effect, was that Hamed will have to learn how to fight. That is
to say, to fight in a professional, disciplined, calculating manner. The
unorthodox style, the big punches from weird and unexpected angles that had
carried Hamed to 35 consecutive victories, 31 by KO, proved ineffective and
looked amateurish against Barrera, the two-time World Boxing Organisation
champion in the super bantamweight (122lbs, or 8st 10lbs) division who, everyone
knew, represented by far Hamed’s most dangerous challenge. There were
those, indeed, who saw this as the first real test of Hamed’s career. The
feeling was that his opponents have been carefully selected, either fighters who
were in decline, were moving up from lighter weight divisions or who lacked
serious punching power (and sometimes various combinations of the above). The
much-anticipated clash with Barrera was seen to be Hamed’s defining fight, the
one that would prove once and for all that he deserves to be called great — or
would expose the Sheffield superstar with the Yemeni ancestral roots as simply a
naturally hard-punching extrovert who, when stripped down to the essence of
world-class boxing, was more showmanship than substance. The latter,
on the evidence before our eyes on the night of 7 April, proved to be the case. Hamed was a
14-5 on betting favourite, the overwhelming pick of not just the boxing writers
but most of the cognoscenti within the game — but he was beaten in every
department of the sport by Barrera. In his Las
Vegas debut and first pay-per-view TV fight in America he was outboxed,
out-thought, outpunched and outgeneralled by his widely underestimated Mexican
opponent. Barrera, who
had promised a straight-ahead, high-pressure, body-punching type of fight,
instead stood back and boxed, jabbing and countering, in the manner of his late,
great countryman, Salvador Sanchez, who was world champion in this weight class
for three years from 1980-82 but was killed in a car crash, at only 23 years of
age and with his best years still to come. Hamed had
never met anyone like Barrera and he had no answers against a boxer of
startlingly superior talent. The Mexican, at 27 the same age as Hamed, looked
like a skilled veteran against an overmatched upstart. Technically
and physically he was too much for Hamed. At 5ft 7ins, Barrera towered four
inches over the British boxer and he made his height and reach count. Hamed was
kept on the outside for much of the fight, looking to land the one big punch
with the left hand from out of his southpaw stance. Meanwhile, Barrera was
piling up points with the jab and landing punches with such jarring effect, from
either side, that Hamed was reluctant to commit himself to an all-or-nothing
type of attack. Instead,
Hamed laid back and waited for the right opening — but one punch was never
going to do it against Barrera. Clearly, too much had been made of the
Mexican’s fifth-round defeat against Junior Jones in November 1996, when a
clash of heads might have left Barrera vulnerable to the New Yorker’s
right-hand smashes. Barrera can
indeed take a punch, in the very best, iron-chinned, Mexican tradition. And so it
went to the scorecards, which had not favoured Barrera in two Las Vegas losses
— the split, highly debatable decision to fellow-Mexican Erik Morales and his
rematch with Junior Jones. But this time
there were no doubts and there was no controversy. There was only one winner, as
Hamed himself acknowledged afterwards. The three Las
Vegas had it unanimously in favour of Barrera, with scores of 116-111, 115-112
and 115-112 a second time. It would have been wider had referee Joe Cortez not
told the judges to take a point from Barrera in the last round, when the Mexican
slammed Hamed face-first into one of the corner pads as they tangled in a
clinch, an unnecessary bit of rough stuff in a fight that was already won Of the 12
rounds, Hamed won only two unanimously on all three scorecards: the fifth and
the 10th. At stake was
the vacant International Boxing Organisation title, but in reality this bout was
to decide who is the best featherweight in the world. (Yes, Erik Morales is the
World Boxing Council champion and holds the win over Barrera, but most people
believe that Barrera won that thrilling Mexican civil war.) Hamed at
least can say that while he is no longer unbeaten he has never been stopped. And
he was never knocked down in the fight. But these can only be slender
satisfactions to the boxer who has long told the world that his punching power
is a gift from Allah and who had assured us he was in the best shape of his life
and ready to “stretch” Barrera. But Hamed has
failed in the past to deliver on promises of spectacular victory. In October
1998, he said before his bout with Wayne McCullough in Atlantic City: “I’m
going to smash Wayne McCullough to bits. Wayne McCullough’s going to get
seriously hurt. It could be his last fight.” Instead, McCullough chased Hamed
for 12 rounds, and although outpointed was the moral victor. Then, a year
later, prior to his fight with Cesar Soto in Detroit, Hamed pledged: “I
ain’t going out there for a nice points victory. I believe I’m going to put
that boy to sleep early. I just can’t wait to perform and dismantle this man.
I want everyone to see how good I can be.” But what we saw was a dreadful,
mishmash of a fight that Hamed won widely on points. Once again,
Hamed has talked the talk but failed to walk the walk — except this time, it
wasn’t merely a matter of struggling instead of winning spectacularly. This
time, he was soundly beaten, as he had the good grace to admit afterwards. As for the
inevitable rematch, it is all well and good to talk about going back to the
drawing board, but what on earth, I wonder, can Hamed do differently? (Barrera
talks of moving down to super bantam again, but the big money is for a return
bout with Hamed.) In the first
round it was startling to observe, from my seat in the third row of the ringside
press section, that Barrera, although a half-a-pound lighter than Hamed at 8st
131/2lbs, looked not only much the bigger man but also appeared be the puncher
in the fight. A left hook
had Hamed flopping around like the proverbial rag doll, and Barrera’s thudding
left jabs were knocking the Prince sideways in a shocking opening round for the
British boxer. I was one of
those who thought that Hamed would win the fight by knockout, but even when he
landed his left-handers, bloodying Barrera’s nose in the third, he couldn’t
budge his opponent. Barrera
showed respect for Hamed’s power by keeping the fight at long range, and there
were times when he retreated strategically. But Barrera was always looking for
the opportunity to deliver powerful, telling punches, and he had Hamed looking
unsteady and staggering in several rounds. But Barrera always went back to his
boxing. This was one fighter who was not going to risk running into one of those
out-of-the-blue Naz thunderbolts. The Mexican
controlled the fight beautifully. It was a triumph for the classical virtues of
the game — good balance, solid technique, the jab, a conventional, hands-up
guard — over the flamboyant, unconventional but seriously flawed style of his
opponent. Hamed has not
looked quite as off-balance as this since the hectic night at Madison Square
Garden when he survived three knockdowns to knock out Kevin Kelley in the fourth
round in December 1997. He won that night because his opponent got involved in a
shoot-out, and Hamed was able to time him and catch him. There would be no such
opportunity against Barrera. Afterwards,
Hamed said he had been trying too hard (to knock his man out). Barrera, he said,
had been the better man on the night. “I thank
God for coming out nice and safe — we’re both safe,” he said. “I give
him the fight, basically, not that I give it, he won the fight, clearly, in my
eyes. “I didn’t
box to the best of my ability. I would honestly say that credit’s due to him,
and I feel that I’ll be back. What can I say? I’m not nowhere near as sad as
I thought I would be, simply because — the kid won the fight — and if
that’s what’s written to me from Allah, it’s written. And if I get to find
out the reason, I get to find out, and if I don’t, I don’t. Marco won the
fight and he deserves all the credit in the world. “There
wasn’t never a time where I thought that it’s not going to be my night.
I’ve knocked guys out in the 11th round before, late. I suppose I just tried
too hard, and if you try too hard, and you try and look for it, it’s not
there. I had my mind focused on hitting him with certain shots and taking him
out, but you know, great fighters have lost before, great fighters come back. “I take
nothing away from the kid. He came prepared, he boxed his fight, he boxed the
right fight, and he won the fight. I didn’t make the adjustments I wanted to
make in that ring tonight, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.” Barrera was a
tough cookie, and Hamed’s claim to greatness crumbled. There were
roars from the packed crowd of 12,847 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena as Hamed’s
head snapped back from punches and he stumbled in confusion and disarray. It was not a
great fight in terms of action but it was dramatic because of the possibility
that Hamed just might be able to connect with a crushing delivery, and the
tactical battle was intriguing, with each trying to get the upper hand
psychologically and tactically. “This was pretty much a mental fight, more
mental than physical,” Barrera said afterwards. Barrera’s
countrymen chanted his name — “Barr-ee-ra!” — and “May-hee-co!” The
outnumbered British contingent tried to rally Hamed with a chant of “Nas-eem,”
but in truth they had little to cheer about. Hamed for
once was not the stronger man in the ring, as we saw in the second round when
the two wrestled in a clinch and went down with the Mexican on top. And as the
rounds went by, Barrera’s dominance became more pronounced. Hamed grinned and
sneered as if to mock the Mexican; he stood in front of Barrera with his hands
by his sides; he twisted his torso this way and that; he waved his right glove
around as if trying to mesmerise his man; he tried switching to the orthodox
stance. But nothing worked, and Barrera was the one doing most of the punching. In the fifth,
Hamed drove a left hand to the chin but Barrera made a motion with his gloves
for Naz to come on in and try to do it again. Hamed tried
to bully the Mexican in the sixth, landing a left as the referee was telling the
fighters to break from a clinch — but Barrera came right back with a left hook
that steadied the Prince and put him in his place. By the sixth,
an upset began to look not just likely but inevitable. In the
eighth, a right-hander had Hamed briefly clutching the top rope, and in the
ninth two successive left hooks wobbled him again. He grinned and tapped his
chin to show he can take it, but all Hamed really had to offer now was defiance.
And while Hamed did land several good shots to pull out the 10th round, he was
outclassed in the last two. In the last round he missed so wildly with a right
hook that he went sailing past Barrera. There have
been what we call miracle finishes in boxing — when an apparently beaten
fighter has found a knockout punch with time running out — but there wasn’t
going to be one on this night. Looking back,
the signs had always been there that Hamed was heading for a come-uppance. There
was the very shaky patch against Manuel Medina, who is not considered a hard
hitter; the late-rounds fade against a swarming Paul Ingle — until his
opponent ran on to a big left; the knockdowns (not all officially recorded as
such) against Kevin Kelley, Daniel Alicea, Tom Johnson and Augie Sanchez; the
unimpressive fights with McCullough and Soto. But, always,
Naz had found a way to win. Until now. Say this for
Hamed: he made a reluctant believer out of many of his critics — and that
includes me. But those who all along had serious reservations about Hamed’s
ability as a fighter have, as of now, been proven correct in their assessment.
The words “I told you so” will, I suspect, be heard on both sides of
the Atlantic for weeks to come. |
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