After having contacted John Shepherd at Prince Promotions (the promotional company behind the boxer formerly known as ‘Prince’
, MaxBoxing can confirm that Naseem Hamed is already back in training, and is seeking a summer showdown against domestic rival Michael Brodie.Brodie of course, has a rematch with In-Jin Chi this Saturday (April 10th) for the vacant WBC featherweight belt.
In fact, Brodie and Hamed were supposed to face one another on two previous occasions but in both cases the fight did not materialise. The difference this time is that Hamed actually appears to already be training. After a long silence from the Hamed camp, this announcement has a ring of truth to it.
The story of Hamed’s return was first broken in the Independent by UK correspondent Steve Bunce.
However, after so many false alarms I thought I’d better contact Prince Promotions and to my surprise I was informed that indeed Naseem was in training already.
It’s going to be a long way back to the featherweight top. If recent reports I’ve heard from people who have seen the Prince are to be believed, he was last seen weighing around the middleweight limit, looking very little like the hard faced fighter he was in his prime and more like a comfortably middle-aged father of two.
Even if this is the case, boxers - especially in the lighter weights - can really shift weight when they are back in serious training, and at only 30, without many really hard fights under his belt, his body should be relatively fresh. If he is already in light training there is nothing to prevent him being in shape by late summer.
However, it is the mental element of Hamed’s game that is most likely to decide the fate of his comeback.
Hamed hasn’t fought since May 2002, and isn’t expected to fight until the late summer. In his last outing, he fought durable but strictly European level featherweight Manuel Calvo, and looked poor doing so. The reaction of the crowd to Hamed’s performance that night reflected their disappointment in the erosion of his skills, but more importantly his confidence, which seemed to evaporate like so much dry ice after the Marco Antonio Barrera fight.
It is going to be a difficult journey for Hamed. It hasn’t yet been announced whether he has a trainer in place, but whoever it is will have to put Hamed back together again piece by piece.
What kind of Hamed will return is very much dependent on what trainer he gets, because by the time he got the Calvo fight, he no longer seemed to know what style he was fighting. Perhaps the time out of the sport, has allowed him to come to terms with what happened that night against Barrera, and look within to find the seat of his decline. Perhaps he just temporarily fell out of love with the sport, and wanted to spend time with his wife and children.
Brodie seems a strange choice of opponent, personally. It seems very risky to me to be putting Hamed in with such a live and game opponent first off. Although most people would have banked on Hamed to have beaten Brodie in his pomp, that pomp is a long way off now, and Brodie, though not the slickest or biggest punching featherweight has the heart of a lion. Perhaps his style will play into Hamed’s hands, but even if it does, I would have thought Brodie would make a real fight of it.
If, and it’s a big ‘if’, Hamed can finally get back to anywhere near the top of the ladder in the next 12 months, it will be a remarkable achievement and will make for a remarkable story too. If Hamed can get back to anything like his best form then the featherweight division and the entire boxing world will be a far richer place for it, but for now, that remains to be seen.
