"The minute I walked through the doors of that boxing club, that was it. I saw the ring, the bags, the lines on the floor, and I was immediately obsessed. This was going to be my life. I saw boxing as a game of tag. I'm going to hit you and you can't hit me. It took speed and accuracy and I was really good at it."
"The Italian had never been knocked down before but Hamed dropped Belcastro with his first punches a gorgeous rightleft combination that dumped the champion in a heap. The Prince could have ended the fight at any time but he stretched out the massacre over 12 rounds to showcase his brilliance and cruelty. At one point he stared at poor Belcastro's feet while thudding punches into his face."
Naseem Hamed, now 51, carries a stately grandeur and remembers an immediate, obsessive attraction to Brendan Ingle's Sheffield gym where boxing became his life. He framed boxing as a game of tag that required speed and accuracy, skills in which he excelled. Hamed debuted with a two-round knockout in April 1992 and rose rapidly, becoming European bantamweight champion in May 1994 after humiliating Vincenzo Belcastro with devastating combinations. He prolonged victories to showcase his brutality and brilliance. Hamed combined dazzling fighting ability with flamboyant showmanship and changed the landscape of British boxing, achieving world champion status thirty years ago.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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