BoxRec

Says on his record he fought the Wbc champ at the time and won, what happened? Was he stripped or did he vacat it?

I could be wrong, but i think he was stripped or gave up his title rather than face Juan Manuel Marquez, who now holds the WBA title.

This was always a dangerous fight, and Marquez wasn't a market name at the time.

Yes I think that's right, Marquez was being avoided like the plague by everyone, and still is to this day, got to give Pacquaio credeit for taking him on.

Nope thats not correct. At the time you couldnt hold the WBO and WBC belts at the same time so Naz won the WBC and gave it up to keep his WBO. Marquez was the mandatory for his WBO belt for a long time not WBC.

Is that right? Well I never, how'd you like THOSE apples.

Bizzare to keep the WBO belt over the WBC though.

Not that bizarre if you think about it, the WBO were letting him fight who he wanted when he wanted pretty much. Marquez was his mandatory for about 2 years and he never fought him and managed to keep the WBO belt. The WBC would no doubt have been a little harder on him in terms of mandatories etc.

007 wrote:Nope thats not correct. At the time you couldnt hold the WBO and WBC belts at the same time so Naz won the WBC and gave it up to keep his WBO. Marquez was the mandatory for his WBO belt for a long time not WBC.

thanks i wasn't 100% sure i was right.

It's clear Naz wanted nothing to do with JMM.

He could have blasted Marquez out early, but I doubt it. Pacman came close but even he couldn't finish Marquez.

Naz would have been given a similar lesson to the Barrera session IMO.

If Naz and JMM did meet at that time, i would have picked Naz, by KO.

but Naz or rather his managment did duck JMM , so shows how dangerous they thought he was.
thing is at the time, JMM wasn't a known fighter, so was a big risk for a small reward

Correct, I can recall that at the time I had not even heard of Marquez, and he was probably more dangerous than he is now. Pacquaio now is a lot better than Naz was by the time he got to Barrera. Had that Naz fought Pacquaio he would have got blitzed. The ealier Naz, a different fight.

It's a shame that he had to choose but that's the belt boys for you if they were really for the fighters theyu would have not given him that choice but there you go.
Naz at his prime 20-23 I think he could have beaten any feather if he fought Barrera then I think he would have stood him on his head to be honset with you. He was not a great but he was still a very very good fighter and apart from Lewis the best I think Britain produced in the late 90's early 2000's

Pretty sure it was Angel Vasquez he was accused of ducking - who turned out to be not so hot after all.

Marquez was offered a fight (the Augie Sanchez date). Not sure on the details of the offer but it was apparently rejected by JMM's camp. Messageboard folklore will have you believe Hamed's team made the offer small on purpose to force the rejection, another way of looking at it is what, apart from losing to Freddie Norwood, had Marquez achieved at this point to start making purse demands to the undisputed champ? 2 sides to all these 'ducking' stories.

Chris the fighter wrote:It's a shame that he had to choose but that's the belt boys for you if they were really for the fighters theyu would have not given him that choice but there you go.
Naz at his prime 20-23 I think he could have beaten any feather if he fought Barrera then I think he would have stood him on his head to be honset with you. He was not a great but he was still a very very good fighter and apart from Lewis the best I think Britain produced in the late 90's early 2000's

I understand your point.

And seeing the documentary on Hamed as he was preparing for the Barrera fight, it's clear that he was more interested in his haircut than his training.

lirva33 wrote:

Chris the fighter wrote:It's a shame that he had to choose but that's the belt boys for you if they were really for the fighters theyu would have not given him that choice but there you go.
Naz at his prime 20-23 I think he could have beaten any feather if he fought Barrera then I think he would have stood him on his head to be honset with you. He was not a great but he was still a very very good fighter and apart from Lewis the best I think Britain produced in the late 90's early 2000's

I understand your point.

And seeing the documentary on Hamed as he was preparing for the Barrera fight, it's clear that he was more interested in his haircut than his training.

What an attrocious haircut it was too!!

Naz was mentally beaten before the Barrera fight I think. That whole shit with the gloves and not flipping into the ring for the first time in his career - people often forget all that when talking about the fight.

007 wrote: That whole shit with the gloves and not flipping into the ring for the first time in his career - people often forget all that when talking about the fight.

Good move not flipping into the ring though, his gloves were wet and he'd have probably ended up on his arse. Someone in the crowd hit him with a full glass of beer ( at least I think it was beer ) on his way down in that daft lift contraption.

topper123 wrote:If Naz and JMM did meet at that time, i would have picked Naz, by KO.

but Naz or rather his managment did duck JMM , so shows how dangerous they thought he was.
thing is at the time, JMM wasn't a known fighter, so was a big risk for a small reward

Not true, Marquez was offered a shot at Naz, if my memory serves me it was the fight in Connecticut which Augie Sanchez took. Marquez's people turned down the fight saying he wasn't ready for Naz yet, this after months (years ?) of calling him out. I spoke to Marquez manager about the fight myself, I think it was Johnny Johnnson. And we hadn't even got to discussing the money / options when they turned it down.

MightyWarrior wrote:

007 wrote: That whole shit with the gloves and not flipping into the ring for the first time in his career - people often forget all that when talking about the fight.

Good move not flipping into the ring though, his gloves were wet and he'd have probably ended up on his arse. Someone in the crowd hit him with a full glass of beer ( at least I think it was beer ) on his way down in that daft lift contraption.

That was hilarious!

Like Tyson and Rooney, Naz and ingle had a special bond that broght the best out of Nas it was all downhill once he left ingle.

MightyWarrior wrote:

007 wrote: That whole shit with the gloves and not flipping into the ring for the first time in his career - people often forget all that when talking about the fight.

Good move not flipping into the ring though, his gloves were wet and he'd have probably ended up on his arse. Someone in the crowd hit him with a full glass of beer ( at least I think it was beer ) on his way down in that daft lift contraption.

I always thought the reason that he didn't flip into the ring was that Barrera insisted on Reyes gloves which have the thumb attached to the body of the glove...

Not quite,
1/ Naz always used Reyes.
2/ All gloves are attached at the thumb.

Watch the pre fight again if you have it - Hamed looks nervous and uncomfortable, the crap with the gloves was a load of tosh Naz had fought in those gloves before (not that exact pair obviously). Barrera got to him before the first bell.

As a Naz fan I was disappointed about all that fuss Naz was making about wanting his gloves to be made out of Goats skins etc. He claimed on TV (maybe tounge in cheek, maybe not) that a goat was a holy animal in Islam. As far as I know this is not so.

I still and will always say that the Naz that beat Robinson may have had the beatings of the Barrera that beat Naz.

I'm not so sure about that. Barrera employed the perfect tactics, counter punching and making Naz miss. I think he could have done that to effect even when Hamed was at his peak. It probably would have been a closer fight but I still think Barrera would have found a way to win. Barrera has so much to his game, he can box on the front foot, back foot, lead off, counter. Hamed was a counter puncher with amazing power, but when he was coming forward pressing the action and leading off he was nowhere near as good. He could look good doing it against the likes of Badillo, Cabrera but as he went up in class he looked a lot shoddier pressing the action and was always better on the counter. Just my thoughts anyway!

JohnShep wrote:Not quite,
1/ Naz always used Reyes.
2/ All gloves are attached at the thumb.

When did that become the case? i thought there were still some gloves

aren't there 'mexican style' which have the thumbs attatched, and the 'other' kind, or is that some time ago now?

Wasn't there some sort of to-do over the gloves?

I think Naz did look more ruthlessly professional at certain times when he elected to break up opponents with a more than decent jab and box properly before bringing in the big guns to finish them off, always with that omnipotent one punch ko threat. I put forward the Johnson, Robinson and Vasquez fights as examples.

But as time went on, like so many big punchers he elected to rely on that one punch ko potential and little else. As Lennox remarked about David Tua, a 'one trick pony'. And a fighter as classy as Barerra would always be able to exploit such shallow 'tactics'.

I do believe Hamed's ability could have been culitvated into something truly special had he not stopped listening but there you go, he didn't and it's all in the past. Although judging by the amount of hits threads with Hamed in the title get on this forum you wouldn't think so!