The Prince is nothing more than a fistic pauper

Prince Naseem Hamed, considered the best featherweight in the world, mostly by himself, thought he would have an easy fight against Marco Antonio Barrera on April 7th. After all, the Prince was unbeaten in 35 fights, with 31 KO's, and was considered the one of the hardest hitters pound-for pound in the sport of boxing.

As for Barrera, he was considered by most experts to be too small and too slow for the Prince. After all, Barrera had never fought at the 126-pound featherweight limit, and in his last fight he had lost a disputed decision to 122-pound champ Erik Morales. And to add to Barrera's lack of luster, he had been beaten twice by Junior Jones, once by knockout.

A sampling of the fight experts before they fight had Hamed almost unanimously the winner. And most thought he would have no trouble knocking out Barrera.

The fight, which was televised on Pay-Per-View at $39.95 a pop, didn't start for a full hour after the scheduled 10-round fight between Omar Shieka and Stefan Oulette. Shieka stunned Oulette with a second-round knockout, and for the next 30 minutes or so, fight fans who had shelled out the forty bucks, were given a glorious tribute to the Prince's greatness.

Then the fight was supposed to start. Right?

Wrong.

It seems the Prince didn't like the way the gloves felt on his hands, so "His Highness" demanded that the Las Vegas commission remove his gloves and that his hands be retaped. That took another 10 minutes.

So then the fight was ready to go. Right?

Wrong again.

The Prince then demanded that he be given two minutes to shadow box so that he could again warm up properly before entering the ring. Hamed proceeded to go through his paces with a trainer sucking up the Prince's punches with the hand mitts. This went on for not two minutes, but for a full ten minutes, while viewers fumed. To make it ever worse, Barrera spent this twenty minutes or so, standing in the runway leading to the ring. Legitimately, Barrera could've returned to his dressing room and played the game fit for a Prince. But instead he stood there smiling, intermittently throwing punches at the air.

So the Prince now properly warmed up, the fight was ready to start. Right?

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