PARIS, 14 May 2006 — As ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed was led away by two security guards to begin a 15-month prison sentence, the fall from grace of one of Britain’s most talented and flamboyant boxers was complete.
Hamed was once the most exciting young fighter to come out of the United Kingdom, possibly even in the whole world.
For such a small man he had devastating punching power, incredible balance, lightning reactions and an acute sense for boxing showmanship. With his swagger came an enormous adolescent arrogance and boasts that he would win world titles at five different weights, retire unbeaten and become a legend.
He was well on the way to fulfilling those prophecies until one sobering night in 2001 when Mexican Marco Antonio Barrera delivered the cocky Sheffield fighter a boxing lesson and so exploded the myth.
Hamed would fight only once more, almost a year later, and was booed from the ring by his own fans for an insipid display.
With his aura blown away and his cocky arrogance shattered, Hamed never recovered. On Friday he hit rock bottom as he was jailed for dangerous driving. But Hamed is not the first nor the last champion to fall from great heights into an ignominious and disgraceful decline.
Most famously of all is ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson, once the youngest ever undisputed heavyweight champion of the world But just over three years after pummeling Trevor Berbick into submission to claim the heavyweight title aged 20, his invincibility was blown away by James ‘Buster’ Douglas. He was then later jailed for three-and-a-half years for rape and went on to spend time behind bars again for assaulting two motorists in a road rage incident.
Tyson also bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear in the ring, bit Lennox Lewis’ leg in a press conference melee and threatened to eat the children that Lewis has never even fathered. But the final humiliation came for Tyson in his last two fights where he lost to Danny Williams and Kevin McBride, fighters who would not have lasted even a full round against Tyson in his prime, before retiring because he did not want to “disgrace” the sport any more. Before Tyson there was Sonny Liston, a feared fighter in the 1950s and 1960s with equally bruising punching power.
Liston also spent two spells behind bars, once for beating up a policeman, but his fearsome reputation was exposed in 1964 by a youthful Cassius Clay, later to become Muhammad Ali.
Liston retired on his stool with a dislocated shoulder at the end of the sixth round and was then knocked out in the first in a rematch a year later. His career was dogged by rumors of links to the Mafia and he was never a popular champion.
In 1970 his career path seemed to be on the up again and a third match with Ali loomed until he was found dead at his home in mysterious circumstances. Britain’s Randolph Turpin became only the second man to beat the great Sugar Ray Robinson in 1951 when claiming the world middleweight championship. Turpin’s reign lasted only 64 days before he lost the rematch to Robinson and he retired in 1958.
In 1966, and after several failed business ventures and mental problems, he committed suicide aged 37. Another Britain, Terry Marsh, became light-welterweight world champion in 1987 but retired unbeaten a year later due to epilepsy.
He split from his wife and in 1990 he was accused of trying to murder his former promoter Frank Warren, although he was acquitted.
American Oliver McCall shocked the world in 1995 by knocking out WBC heavyweight champion Lewis in two rounds. McCall lost that title to Frank Bruno and two years later, in a rematch with Lewis, he was disqualified in the fifth round after he burst into tears during the fight and refused to punch back. He later went on to spend several stints in drug rehabilitation centers and was also arrested for public disorder offenses, including threatening to kill a police officer.
