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December 1998
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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THE FAMILY POWER BEHIND THE THRONE
Naseem Hamed's family now have complete control of the champ's career, and that might not be bad news for promoter Frank Warren. GLYN LEACH reports |
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NEW BOSS?: Riath Hamed is the hot favourite to take over control of his brother's career
- Get Big Pic As the power struggle surrounding Naseem Hamed approaches its acrimonious conclusion,
the words spoken by the World Boxing Organisation champion's older brother, Nabeel, at the
end of last year have taken on a prophetic tone. In an interview with author Nick Pitt for
the book The Paddy and the Prince, 28-year-old Nabeel, then the manager of his brother's
fan club, said: "A lot of people laugh when they hear we're building an empire but
it's better for us if they do. Wait and see." Nabeel and the eldest Hamed brother, 29-year-old Riath (until recently the Prince's
business manager), have long ceased being a joke to their rivals. Respectively the
promotions director and managing director ("we've given ourselves new job
titles," laughed Riath) of Prince Naseem Enterprises - off-shore bank accounts and
all - the brothers have become increasingly influential, to the point where, now, total
autonomy is within their grasp. Plainly, changes need to be made. The fighter's career hit an all-time low at the end
of October in Atlantic City. The terrible atmosphere surrounding Hamed's dour points
victory over Wayne McCullough, where the always uneasy relationship between the Prince and
the press worsened considerably, has been reported extensively. And the general consensus
reached by bulk of the media is that the champion and his bandwagon have gone off the
rails. Where, one gets the impression, journalism would be quite happy to let it stay and
rot. The bulk of the criticism for the unedifying events in the seedy East Coast gambling
centre has been levelled at Hamed himself; after all, it was he who verbally attacked
members of the media, apparently reducing one reporter to tears. The war of words became
personal - from both sides - and there can be no excusing such undignified, vindictive
behaviour. But the growing proliferation of factions seeking to control the champion created a
tension that could only result in an explosion; something had to give, and it was Hamed,
who for so long had represented the calm at the eye of the storm which has grown
proportionately with his personal fortune, now estimated to be in the region of £15
million. This remarkably self-possessed young man had, somehow, appeared able to comfortably
operate within the bad tempered and paranoid environment created by the warring parties.
But in Atlantic City, for the first time in 31 undefeated fights, Hamed's level of
performance suffered. Although winning comfortably against McCullough, Hamed's showing was
widely slated as his worst ever. Lord knows there were enough mitigating factors to explain why the Prince was not at
his all-destroying best: 1: Hamed arrived in the USA just four days before the big night due to the
now-notorious visa cock-up. Had he been an overseas boxer coming to Britain to fight, he
would have been refused permission to do so - the British Boxing Board of Control demands,
theoretically at least, that visiting boxers should be in the country at least seven days
prior to fight time, through medical considerations. Some have claimed that Hamed, because he flew from London to New York by Concorde
(which takes three hours rather than the customary seven-plus) would have experienced
little problem with jet-lag. But I have been advised that this is not the case, that the
length of journey is virtually irrelevant; the traveller still ends up in a different time
zone. And from my own experiences as a relatively regular trans-Atlantic traveller, it
takes at least a week to feel 100% - and that's for writing, not fighting. 2: Hamed cannot fail to have been affected by the troubles that almost saw this
promotion scrapped. Frank Warren's legal war with Don King resulted in the American going
through the courts to try and wreck what would have been Warren's second promotion on U.S.
soil. In order to save the event, Warren was forced to back down; Cedric Kushner became
the show's official promoter. Riath Hamed claims that it was only on the Friday prior to
the fight that he became certain his brother's £1 million purse would be guaranteed. 3: The much-publicised changes in Hamed's training situation caused considerable
friction. At first, the fighter and his "estranged" trainer, Brendan Ingle,
appeared to be getting on surprisingly well considering what had gone down between them;
the pair hugged warmly when Hamed arrived in Atlantic City on Tuesday 27th, and they
seemed comfortable with the situation as Hamed trained later that day, the only open
work-out he staged during fight week (which was one more than McCullough, let it be
noted). But on the night, it became plain that all was not well. It wasn't so much that Hamed
ignored the pleas of his "corner adviser" between rounds - it was the amount of
energy he expended in doing so. Remaining standing during most of the one-minute breaks,
Hamed tried so hard to show that he wasn't at all interested in what Ingle had to say that
he clearly could not have been concentrating sufficiently on the job in hand. No matter
how talented the boxer, the break between rounds in a world championship 12-rounder should
not be used for playing games. 4: It would be dangerous for Hamed to admit it - because if he did, cunning opponents
might turn the scene around his future fights into something resembling a creche
convention - but Hamed must have been unsettled by the sight of McCullough and his wife,
Cheryl, constantly accompanied by their baby daughter, Wynona, every time the couple
appeared in public. This, after all, was the fighter who Hamed truly believed he would
seriously hurt, whose career he was going to end, and whose name, followed by the initials
"R.I.P.", Hamed had demanded should be erased from the final tombstone in the
"graveyard" set HBO had construted for the champion's entrance. With Hamed and his wife, Eleasha, only recently having become parents for the first
time, and as the Prince has been so clearly moved by the summer arrival of his son and
heir, Sami Naz, it is hardly surprising that McCullough was not subjected to the manner of
vicious, heavy-hitting assault that had seen the previous 18 Hamed opponents fall inside
the distance. His critics doubt that Hamed is capable of such humanitarian feelings - and maybe
they're right. But Hamed need not have "gone soft" in order to relate the
Ulsterman's situation to his own. (NOTE: had I been in charge of Hamed's P.R., I would have "leaked" this
particular excuse, whether true or not, some time between the final bell sounding and the
judges' scores being announced.) 5: Hamed's left hand was very swollen after the fight. He claimed that he'd hurt it in
the third, the round in which he'd predicted McCullough would fall, and the only point in
the fight where it seemed as though he were making a concerted effort to finish the
challenger. When he talked about McCullough's "hard head" at the post-fight press
conference, Hamed may not have been making the "hilarious joke" that his army of
sad sycophants appeared, by their false, False, FALSE uproarious laughter, to have
believed was the case. Marching forwards with his chin tucked into his chest and his
gloves held high to protect his chin and jaw, the only target area offered to the champion
- who for some reason seemed reluctant to attack McCullough's body - was the top of the
Irishman's head. Absolutely any fighter will tell you that connecting too often with an
opponent's cranium is likely to cause him less problems than you - more so if you are as
heavy a puncher as the Prince. But the focus was on the backstage battles that had led the champion to the crossroads.
Defeat - and all its repercussions - was becoming a distinct possibility for the world's
dominant featherweight. And those who sought to control his career realised that they had
to resolve their situations fast, while there was still a career left for them to squabble
over. By the end of the year, the power struggle will be decided and the Hamed family axis
are favourites to finish in front of Brendan Ingle and Frank Warren, the men who
respectively taught and promoted Naseem into a position of worldwide prominence. Warren's promotional contract with the Prince has expired, bringing speculation that
his five-year association with Hamed, 24, is about to end. Naseem is due to return from
holiday in Florida within the next few days and, when Riath returns from his own break
in Cyprus next week, negotiations are set to take place with Warren, whose uncharacteristic
"no comment" stance suggests that he fears the worst. Manager/trainer Ingle has already been marginalised following unflattering revelations
about Hamed in Pitt's book, which took formation in the autumn of 1997 at a low point in
the relationship between Dublin-born Ingle and the fighter he discovered as a seven year old.
Ingle, whose role has been systematically eroded since the Hamed family first became
involved in the Prince's career four years ago, has announced that his loyalty lies with
Warren and not Naseem, through whom he has become a millionaire; if Hamed splits with
Warren, he does so with Ingle, too, says the trainer who recently has been referred to as
"Judas" by the fighter he discovered and nurtured. Warren's association with Hamed began in 1994, at a time when Nabeel Hamed worked as a
car mechanic and Riath was a community liaison officer in Sheffield. The fighter had
previously been promoted by Barry Hearn and then Mickey Duff, but it was under Warren that
Hamed's career took off; within a year, a prospect earning £25,000 per fight had turned
into a world champion with purses in the £1 million bracket. It was Warren who negotiated
Hamed's £12 million, six-fight deal with American TV giants Home Box Office. Losing control of the jewel in his stable's crown would be a bitter blow to the
promoter, whose much-publicised legal war with his former partner, Don King, stems
directly from Warren's efforts to further Hamed's career in the USA. Warren felt that HBO
were more able than King's exclusive TV outlet, Showtime, to "move" Hamed. And
the evidence suggests he was correct, Indeed, it is difficult to spot where Warren may
have made a wrong move in guiding Hamed's career. But blood is thicker than water and Hamed the fighter has stated many times that the
only people he trusts are his family. "Because the promotions make so much money, we want a larger share," said
Riath. "As Naz has to take all the risks and all the flak, the money should be more
in Naz's favour. We're not saying that Naz has done it all by himself, but he is the one
who takes all the risks and that should be reflected." As outsiders, boxing powerbrokers with limited experience gained in only four years,
there is a wholesale distrust of the Hamed clan. And any blame that was not heaped upon
their brother's shoulders for the goings on in Atlantic City was, by and large,
apportioned to them. "I know that in everyone's eyes we're playing a very dangerous game, but we have
to act in Naz's best interests," said Riath. "And after Atlantic City we realise
exactly what we're up against. We're challenging the status quo, and there are people -
including a large proportion of the media, who are hell-bent on protecting it. I believe
that the press coverage of my brother's last fight was completely orchestrated, 100%. "But the time has come for people to stop pointing the finger and blaming all and
sundry for what went on. We must move on, for Naz's sake. "We still want to work with Mr Warren out of loyalty and respect. But we now have
no contractual relationship with any promoter in the world. We now have all the worldwide
rights to my brother's career and we don't see why Naz should not be getting the bulk of
the financial rewards." Whether Warren will be happy with the share he is likely to be offered remains to be
seen, but the fact remains that having even one finger in the lucrative Hamed pie beats
having none at all. Warren will need to weigh personal pride against pragmatism. And he is
a businessman. Ingle has already faced this choice; relegated to the role of "corner
adviser" for the McCullough fight, where his advice was steadfastly ad studiously
ignored by the champion, Ingle appears to have accepted what has been offered for the sake
of the careers of his sons, John and Dominic, who are now installed as Hamed's official
trainers. But the strain has taken its toll on the veteran. As he walked alone on the Atlantic
City Boardwalk in the last week of October, Ingle had the forlorn look of a man who has
created a monster. Every action, every word or gesture, seemed to suggest he was asking
himself: "Is it worth the hassle." And at some time, irrespective of the huge
amounts of money involved, that thought that must have crossed the minds of everyone
involved in this saga, family or otherwise. |
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