BoxRec

paddy chavez wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 08:24

danconnollyeire wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 08:18

Stuarty wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 07:55 Love him or hate him Naz is one of the best we've produced. He should've stayed with Ingle and kept his head. Although he was very good he could've been so much better. Made plenty money and got out the game young and fresh with his health but can't help but think what could've been.

To be fair he did unite with Ingle later on... Percy Ingle that is

Naz had a similar career to Tyson both amazingly gifted with trainers that exploited their natural gifts to get the most out of them then they leave that trainer and start to go down hill from there and end up not living up to their early promise.

Many punchers who are demolishing fighters lose the technical skills that got them there, Qawi, Tyson, Julian Jackson. It’s not like Naz is the first to do this. Still many big nights, and a lot of stoppages over solid world class names. Some terrible fights but some wild slugging matches/up-and-downers also (vs Kelley, Sanchez & Alicea) & the Ingle fight was riveting. Ingle was being tortured in there, staged an epic late comeback before Naz landed devastating KO punches.

While Naz has been arguably our most successful fighter ever I still feel he underachieved significantly

I don't know how mad the stadiums would be. I'm sure the crowds would be quite raucous indeed, and I'd favor him confidently over most any of the guys in his weight range.

He against Vasyl at Featherweight would've been an interesting tussle.

I'd confidently pick him in his prime over Santa Cruz, Gary Russell, Carl Frampton or any of those cats.

Nightmare Roy wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 08:06

Stuarty wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 08:02

Nightmare Roy wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 08:00
They were fcuking miles better and they often crossed over to the states for some monster fights there too, you'd get may 8-10 hours of boxing, now sky are serving up dog poo.

Aye that's right! And if Naz was in states there used to be a card here as a warm up....

Yeah me and my pals had some top nights, few beers in the pub, back to a house for 7 and then get really messy, upto 5am, some poor fcuker would always fall asleep, get a beard and glasses drawn on in permanent marker and quite rightly get tea bagged by the rest of us. Happy days

Meanwhile, in London, we were doing the exact same thing

Coco wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 16:16 While Naz has been arguably our most successful fighter ever I still feel he underachieved significantly

My view is that he & Mike Tyson were similar in that they both had decent boxing skills but after winning a title started to just swing for the fences rather than rely on the fundamentals.

Watching naz v steve robinson is what got me into boxing - he did wonders for the sport in terms of gerting boxing out to joe public and not just us "hardcore" fans

He'd have to dial down the Islamic stuff these days.

deadpan wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 19:54 He'd have to dial down the Islamic stuff these days.

True. His version was more magic genie and flying carpets Islam

Naz feasted on shop worn and long past their best guys to build his reputation.
Kelly was a good few years past his best and still had enough to give the Naz bandwagon a scare.
Barrera was seen as shop worn enough to beat, and lead him to the Morales fight .. he didn’t get passed Barerra!

Naz was clearly talented - but nowhere near an ATG.

tonyevs wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 02:42 Naz feasted on shop worn and long past their best guys to build his reputation.
Kelly was a good few years past his best and still had enough to give the Naz bandwagon a scare.
Barrera was seen as shop worn enough to beat, and lead him to the Morales fight .. he didn’t get passed Barerra!

Naz was clearly talented - but nowhere near an ATG.

True to a degree but a tad harsh too.

People calling the Kelly fight a shootout, up and downer forget that even despite the knockdowns, Naz was never in any real trouble ( strange as that may sound )
Any knockdown he suffered was always down to his style and being caught off balance. He had a great chin.

He was never going to have a loooooooong career, but I feel like many others do, that he got to Barrera too late. I think he’d have stopped Barrera had it taken place a few years earlier

The Kelley fight is regarded as a minor classic. Naz’s Head was being alarmingly jerked and snapped around. It was a truly disastrous start. A great little battle, not an epic in the vein of a Bobby Chacon or Danny Lopez special, but a great one for this generation, with short attention span, to check out.

Don’t know how many times I have to say this. It bothers me that people are trying to rewrite history. Kelley was experienced and sill fast enough. And he beat an incredibly difficult opponent, on HBO’s Boxing After Dark series, Derrick Gainer in a FOTY and KOOTY candidate. To earn a title shot, and to earn this stage. Kelley was always a warrior in riveting life and death fights, as a prospect vs Troy Dorsey, winning the title over Goyo Vargas, losing the title to Alejandro Gonzalez, and rebounding vs difficult Ricardo Rivera. Then showing he was still serious post-Naz, vs Humberto Soto. His best wins were all narrowly on points, or come from behind KOs.

lillywhite14 wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 03:17

tonyevs wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 02:42 Naz feasted on shop worn and long past their best guys to build his reputation.
Kelly was a good few years past his best and still had enough to give the Naz bandwagon a scare.
Barrera was seen as shop worn enough to beat, and lead him to the Morales fight .. he didn’t get passed Barerra!

Naz was clearly talented - but nowhere near an ATG.

True to a degree but a tad harsh too.

People calling the Kelly fight a shootout, up and downer forget that even despite the knockdowns, Naz was never in any real trouble ( strange as that may sound )
Any knockdown he suffered was always down to his style and being caught off balance. He had a great chin.

He was never going to have a loooooooong career, but I feel like many others do, that he got to Barrera too late. I think he’d have stopped Barrera had it taken place a few years earlier

it absolutely was a shootout, naz didnt go down 3 times in 4 rounds for no reason, they were throwing hard and he was getting caught

you seem to be the other side of the 'harsh' coin---,downplaying his struggles, and making excuses for naz and saying if hed done this then he wouldve done that. naz has to be one of the most hypothetically based fighters theres been. some ppl act like he really did face all of mab, jmm, pac, morales, etc and beat them to prove total greatness, since he apparently wouldve done that a few years earlier, when he was focused, when he was looking better and 'more technical' vs far worse opponents then them

naz had a lot of solid wins but beat no one really impressive, and lost handily vs his one great opponent (no matter how youve tried to downplay it in other threads). kelly was solid but nothing special, but he was still one of his best wins and yes it was a shootout with the king of hypotheticals (but only with 'focused', few years earlier naz) going down 3 times

At the time naz was around i couldnt wait for him to be knocked off his perch but when he did i felt for him and began to appreciate him abit more. If he was with hearn he would be at wembley and cardiff every other fight but like its been said earlier the ppv shows back then were better value for money than they are now,some fw shows had 4 world titles on it,if hearn had 4 workd titles on a show he would be givin interviews galore creamin his pants to say how great it is and its never been done before the adverts for the ppv would come on and it would be £25. Another thing with the old ppvs there wouldnt be a fckin william hill ad between every round

jamamb wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 03:53

lillywhite14 wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 03:17

tonyevs wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 02:42 Naz feasted on shop worn and long past their best guys to build his reputation.
Kelly was a good few years past his best and still had enough to give the Naz bandwagon a scare.
Barrera was seen as shop worn enough to beat, and lead him to the Morales fight .. he didn’t get passed Barerra!

Naz was clearly talented - but nowhere near an ATG.

True to a degree but a tad harsh too.

People calling the Kelly fight a shootout, up and downer forget that even despite the knockdowns, Naz was never in any real trouble ( strange as that may sound )
Any knockdown he suffered was always down to his style and being caught off balance. He had a great chin.

He was never going to have a loooooooong career, but I feel like many others do, that he got to Barrera too late. I think he’d have stopped Barrera had it taken place a few years earlier

it absolutely was a shootout, naz didnt go down 3 times in 4 rounds for no reason, they were throwing hard and he was getting caught

you seem to be the other side of the 'harsh' coin---,downplaying his struggles, and making excuses for naz and saying if hed done this then he wouldve done that. naz has to be one of the most hypothetically based fighters theres been. some ppl act like he really did face all of mab, jmm, pac, morales, etc and beat them to prove total greatness, since he apparently wouldve done that a few years earlier, when he was focused, when he was looking better and 'more technical' vs far worse opponents then them

naz had a lot of solid wins but beat no one really impressive, and lost handily vs his one great opponent (no matter how youve tried to downplay it in other threads). kelly was solid but nothing special, but he was still one of his best wins and yes it was a shootout with the king of hypotheticals (but only with 'focused', few years earlier naz) going down 3 times

This is absolutely correct.

Hard to add much, but safe to say that Naz had a power and style to beat rubbish or shot fighters spectacularly. It is what made him popular. But this had lead to him being incredibly overrated. Like 'look what he did to Daniel Alicia, he would have smashed Morales'.

From what I remember he avoided JMM, and when he lost to Freddie Norwood, Boxing News questioned why. Obviously JMM went on to become a legend, but that wasn't expected at the time.

I’m not sure Naz could have been any more famous than he was, with or without stadiums tbh. He was a proper phenomenon.

thepocketrocket wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 04:31
From what I remember he avoided JMM, and when he lost to Freddie Norwood, Boxing News questioned why. Obviously JMM went on to become a legend, but that wasn't expected at the time.

I was coming to the end to make pretty much that exact point. He avoided JMM like the plaque and it was not because he was not known as he fought a shitload of unknowns in title fights. It was not just because he was dangerous as he clashed with dangerous guys, it was because they could see what was obvious, that JMM was a serious level guy and would kick Naz's ass.

I wonder how many here actually think, with all the benefit of hindsight, that Naz would have won

Risk and reward are why he never fought JMM, he had nothing to gain from facing a dangerous fighter like JMM and if he'd lost it would have hurt his standing massively.

jamamb wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 03:53

lillywhite14 wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 03:17

tonyevs wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 02:42 Naz feasted on shop worn and long past their best guys to build his reputation.
Kelly was a good few years past his best and still had enough to give the Naz bandwagon a scare.
Barrera was seen as shop worn enough to beat, and lead him to the Morales fight .. he didn’t get passed Barerra!

Naz was clearly talented - but nowhere near an ATG.

True to a degree but a tad harsh too.

People calling the Kelly fight a shootout, up and downer forget that even despite the knockdowns, Naz was never in any real trouble ( strange as that may sound )
Any knockdown he suffered was always down to his style and being caught off balance. He had a great chin.

He was never going to have a loooooooong career, but I feel like many others do, that he got to Barrera too late. I think he’d have stopped Barrera had it taken place a few years earlier

it absolutely was a shootout, naz didnt go down 3 times in 4 rounds for no reason, they were throwing hard and he was getting caught

you seem to be the other side of the 'harsh' coin---,downplaying his struggles, and making excuses for naz and saying if hed done this then he wouldve done that. naz has to be one of the most hypothetically based fighters theres been. some ppl act like he really did face all of mab, jmm, pac, morales, etc and beat them to prove total greatness, since he apparently wouldve done that a few years earlier, when he was focused, when he was looking better and 'more technical' vs far worse opponents then them

naz had a lot of solid wins but beat no one really impressive, and lost handily vs his one great opponent (no matter how youve tried to downplay it in other threads). kelly was solid but nothing special, but he was still one of his best wins and yes it was a shootout with the king of hypotheticals (but only with 'focused', few years earlier naz) going down 3 times

I don’t add anything to his legacy based on ‘could have beens’ though, we can only rank him on what he did of course. For that reason I don’t rate him highly as some but over the years I have grown to think he didn’t achieve all that he probably could of.

I’m not making excuses for him, ultimately, his attitude would have maybe restricted his ceiling anyway. A fighter who falls in love with his power, clearly shows a weakness and that can always be exploited. For him to fully achieve any hypothetical potential, he’d have probably had to have a personality transplant so that might have led to him being a completely different fighter anyway! His arrogance/confidence was a positive and also a negative. To think he simply thought he’d bowl in and knock Barrera spark out is ridiculous!

I enjoy discussing Naz because there are decent cases to be made either way you see him.

I do urge anyone interested to have another look at the Kelley fight though. He was more than solid too. He had lost 1 in nigh on 50 fights at the time he fought Naz for example. He went on to fight Morales and Barrera years later too. At no point in that fight was Naz hurt imo. Technically it was shootout I guess, and of course had many knockdowns etc, but Naz wasn’t close to being stopped ( bar a poor ref decision )

If he was fighting today I would fancy Joshua.

He would somersault over the top rope bounce off the canvass like a space hopper and land on Eddie Hearns wallet.

SticknMove wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 07:34 If he was fighting today I would fancy Joshua.

He would somersault over the top rope bounce off the canvass like a space hopper and land on Eddie Hearns helmet.

SticknMove wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 07:34 If he was fighting today I would fancy Joshua.

He would somersault over the top rope bounce off the canvass like a space hopper and land on Eddie Hearns wallet.

Now that's worth £19.99

The Prince was one of the big names when I first got into watching pro boxing.
I remember that despite the weight difference there was a lot of SKY talking up a fight with Acelino Freitas.
All I can do is echo what others have said really, he was phenomenal entertainment but almost certainly could have done more than the already incredible accolades he lifted.
One of my personal favourite Hamed moments was when he messed up the ring vault, shushed the crowd and got out to do it again.

Nightmare Roy wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 07:46

J wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 07:25 if Naz were fighting today he would be a cruiserweight.

Most overated Brit boxer ever imo.

cheered for Barerra a true legend.

I was happy Barrera taught him some manners too, that said imagine how big he would have been with Hearn behind him.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not

Nightmare Roy wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 07:46

J wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 07:25 if Naz were fighting today he would be a cruiserweight.

Most overated Brit boxer ever imo.

cheered for Barerra a true legend.

I was happy Barrera taught him some manners too, that said imagine how big he would have been with Hearn behind him.

How much bigger could he have been? He was huge at the time, everyone knew him.

Adidas did an iconic tv ad around him taking America. Had a matchroom fighter had that exposure yet?

Warren took him to the garden and put the show on, Hearn hasn’t done that for his fighters, only doing it now with the cash injection he’s had. Didn’t do it with his own money.

Wa1nuts wrote: ↑23 Jun 2018, 13:37

Nightmare Roy wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 07:46

J wrote: ↑22 Jun 2018, 07:25 if Naz were fighting today he would be a cruiserweight.

Most overated Brit boxer ever imo.

cheered for Barerra a true legend.

I was happy Barrera taught him some manners too, that said imagine how big he would have been with Hearn behind him.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not