UFO Info Week-End

Then I got this place and I went back into training non-stop until the injury

Then I got this place and I went back into training non-stop until the injury. Now I’m really confident about fighting again.” He says the pressure on him is no greater because he is coming off a loss “If anything, it’s less. All eyes were on me to get beat and once that happened the pressure’s off. There were people out there who couldn’t wait to see me get beat, and it’s always been like that, even in my amateur fights I don’t even blame them Wanting to see me lose puts money in my bank.

If they didn’t really care or didn’t want to know, that’s when I’d have to worry.”But deep in my heart I know I can beat Barrera. In fact there isn’t a featherweight out there I couldn’t beat, basically I’m gunning for them all, although Barrera is my main goal I want revenge, one hundred per cent. Revenge.”I think I’ve got a few years left yet in boxing, and although I’m content with what I’ve achieved, I still want to go down as one of the greats. I believe I’m just as much or even more hungry now than I’ve ever been. You see me here now relaxed and smiling in my own gym with my Ferrari outside, but you can’t see what I feel inside or know what I want I want more from me. I need to pitch myself at an even higher level.”The magic-carpet ride may be over, but in a perverse way Hamed seems to think that now he has been beaten, he will actually become more popular “Look, I’m not comparing myself to Ali. You remember how when he first started out, everyone couldn’t wait for him to get beat Then when it did happen, it all changed.

Now everyone loves him.”He obviously yearns for similar affection. “When you’re on TV doing your job, people get an impression of you that may not be accurate. They don’t know me, don’t know what surrounds me, don’t know what I do, don’t know how I live. There’s a side to me outside the sport, but part of my job is to get everyone to watch me and that’s the whole reason I come across the way I do. There isn’t a better promoter in the business than me.”So it’s all an act, then? “Well, I wouldn’t say that exactly. But what do you want me to do? Get up on a stage and say, ‘I’ve trained really hard, fellas, I don’t know if I’m really going to win or not, but I’m going to do my best’ I don’t know anybody who wants to hear that.