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Good grace Loss shows Hamed's true character
Updated: Monday April 09, 2001 1:34 PM
The old saying that you learn more about a person's character in defeat than in victory was never more clearly illustrated than in the early hours of Sunday morning, when the self-styled "Prince" Naseem Hamed responded to his dethroning at the hands of Mexican featherweight boxing maestro Marco Antonio Barrera with more good grace than many dreamed he could muster. Having surrendered his unbeaten record after 35 victories to an opponent whose sophisticated talents and disciplined performance made Hamed look like a wayward amateur, the brash British boxer could have been forgiven for being a bit churlish in his post fight interviews. Let's be honest -- past experience has shown us that when it comes to points decisions, especially unanimous verdicts, beaten fighters have rarely seen the same fight as the judges have seen. And even on the rare occasion when they will acknowledge defeat, they can usually find a myriad of trivial excuses why they didn't live up to their pre-fight promises.
Hamed, however, would have none of the above. He eschewed the usual griping in favor of praising Barrera for his talents, congratulating him on his victory, and admitting his own need to get back to the gym to correct his shortcomings before their return match. For me, that not only showed the true class of the man, but also gave the public a brief glimpse of the real sportsman that's so often overshadowed by the self-propelled hype.
And make no mistake, when it comes to tacky self-promotion, Hamed is the master. From his cocky, often adolescent, attitude in pre-fight interviews to the toe-curling tackiness of his ring arrivals (his latest having involved an explosion of pyrotechnics and an aerial entrance that would have been more at home in the Cirque du Soleil), the Prince has taken fight promotion to new heights or new depths depending on your viewpoint. However, when style begins to overshadow the substance, that's when a fighter can get into trouble. Especially when he starts to believe his own press, as Hamed did against Barrera, the so-called "hardest pound for pound puncher in boxing" having abandoned combination punching in favor of stalking his opponent looking to land the one spectacular bomb that would end the fight. The man who's been feted for his unorthodox technique, became so gung-ho and unbalanced that he looked like a beginner. The Prince who would be King was reduced to a grinning and impotent court jester. Can Hamed come back from all that? Well, of course, he says he can. And while that is the knee-jerk reaction of every vanquished champion, I believe him. The mature way in which he dealt with defeat having perhaps set the tone for a new Naz, who can learn from his loss and emerge from the rebuilding process a more complete fighter. In short, the Prince may no longer be first in line for the throne, but don't think his coronation has been postponed indefinitely. Terry Baddoo is co-host of World Sport, the international sports show that airs live on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN International.
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