They will, to validate their concern, perhaps point to “Prince” Naseem Hamed’s reaction to losing his first professional fight against Marco Antonio Barrera in April 2001. Hamed, like Spence, had taken time out following that shattering defeat before returning to the ring 13 months later in a low-key IBO title fight against Manuel Calvo. I was there at the London Arena that night and can remember seeing Hamed essentially retire mid-fight, fed up with it all. Gone, all of a sudden, was his passion for the sport and both the desire and spite to finish Calvo in a mismatch. Gone, also, was Hamed’s mystique and all that once made him special. In place of that you had 10,000 British fans inside an arena stamping their feet in frustration and chanting “Bruno! Bruno! Bruno!” to reveal that absence, in Hamed’s case, had not made the heart grow fonder. Hamed, needless to say, got the message. Though then only 28, he would never fight again.
The contrasting fortunes of Terence Crawford and Errol Spence
