Definitive Career Enders not Involving Death or Permanent Injury...

Well, that's why he's not up there with guys like Barrera and Pacquiao.

 

yup. Glad I'm not the lone voice in the wilderness who picked up on that. He stopped moving his head first of all, which A) left his head a sitting duck (which Sanchez, Barrera and Calvo all consecutively exploited) and B) took away from his ability to find weird angles for his shots. He also started holding his hands down at his thighs rather than his chest, which he had previously, making his shots longer and turning his jab into some sort of heinous & ineffectual back hand. His reflex' also went way down hill though probably more due to the fact that he pretty much abandoned serious training and sparring by that point, rather than due to age.

Not saying he necessarily would have beaten Barrera at his his peak (Barrera would be a marginal favourite), but nevertheless he had clearly regressed badly by 2001. Saying Barrera ended Naz is misleading....three men ended Naz - himself, Oscar Suarez and Manny Steward, in that order.

 

Who was the last fighter of note that Oscar Suarez actually helped?

 

its never happened. I think he's the subject of some in-joke bet between King & Arum al la Eddie Murphy in changing places. Somewhere in New Jersey there's an experienced world class trainer reduced to washing the windscreens of cars at traffic lights & selling boxing of oranges under freeway bridges.::

 

Roberto Duran-Davey Moore

 

Just watched Hamed-Kelly, Hamed-Johnson & Hamed-Barrera consecutively (Yes I was bored ).

Firstly Hamed Barrera was way more competitive than I remembered. The consesnsus was that it was an 8-4 fight and it was, but that doesn't tell the whole story of just how respectful and cautious Barrera was until the 12th. On another night Hamed might have gotten some momentum going & won that, and if the doofuses in his corner had given him the input of simple adjustments to make such as moving to his fucking right so he could let his cross go, throwing the jab to the body to bring Barrera's hands down, switch hitting more etc he just might have. That doesn't even take into account the fact that Hamed didn't train for the damn fight...anybody who watched "little prince" knows what Im talking about there.

And most striking when you watch his earlier fights compared to the Barrera fight was how much slower he was in his hand and foot speed. The difference was enormous - much bigger than I had previously realized. On top of the regressions he had made in his style from an unorthodox switch hitting peak-a-boo fighter to a drunken, straight as a board, back slapping snake charmer then its clear that the Naz Barrera fought was FAR from his best. In fact on the back of what I saw I think a 97, 98 version of Naz was probably the best featherweight of this generation. Certainly not the greatest, but I think the best.:stir:

 

Excellent Post :bears:

Hamed was beaten clear by MAB, but people talk about it like he lost every second of every round. Which he certainly did not...