Best Boxing Entrance: Prince Naseem Hamed in Thriller
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
The best boxing entrance in my view was Prince Naseem Hamed’s ’Thriller’ ring entrance in 1998. More show than hype, perhaps created, perhaps contrived, it was pure originality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZvBDYS6hsY
Prince Naseem Hamed arrives dancing to Thriller to defend his title in Atlantic City, 1998
Over time, many boxing fans often ask me which boxer I felt had the most dramatic presence. Truth be told, some boxers draw the cash, while other boxers have the flash.
In days of long ago, the presence of heavyweight champions like Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey were indelible in their time. Battling Siki walking his pet lions was certainly unique. Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis were certainly colorful figures in their time.
Muhammad Ali had the mouth, and used it as his flare to get attention. Hector ‘Macho’ Camacho had many outfits, but he also had a solid chin of granite no opponent could dent.
When it comes to the dramatic entry, Prince Naseem Hamed wins my aware for the best flash of the dramatic. The featherweight southpaw from Sheffield, United Kingdom stood only 5’4 ½”, but his dramatic entrances made him larger than life. To date, Hamed is the only boxer ever seen who entered the ring by the most impossible route-by somersaulting over the top rope and landing on his feet. Hamed loved to flip in both directions inside the ring, also an original move for a boxer.
Between 1992 and 2002, Hamed posted a record of 36 wins and only one defeat, with 18 knockouts, and held the IBF, WBO and IBO World Featherweight titles, winning 17 of his 18 world title bouts, including winning the IBO world title in his final bout to as a winner.
On October 31, 1998, Hamed defended his WBO title at the Convention Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey by 12 round decision over Wayne McCullough. Victory notwithstanding, Hamed made his ring entrance through an array of white smoke, chattering skeletons, cobwebs and tombstones in a scene even the late Michael Jackson would characterize as eerie madness. As Thriller music blared, Hamed emerged from the white smoke, occasionally pausing to punch a skeleton head off its tombstone.
Some of Hamed’s dancing moves in the ring, and flips of various kinds in and about the ring, can be found in the below highlights reel with his best moves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEatWLF9hI
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