Naz at 50 - the 31 knockout things you should know about Naseem Hamed

Wherever he is, whatever he is doing to celebrate the life milestone, he'll doubtless pause to reflect on the years he spent as arguably the most entertaining sports-person on the planet.

He was, of course, an extraordinary boxing talent. Of his 36 wins, he knocked out 31 opponents. His style was as unique and unpredictable as it was explosive.

But it was his demeanour, his sometimes outrageous personal style, which included those bizarre ring entrances, that he will be remembered for just as vividly.

So here are 31 interesting observations (in honour of his 31 KOs) about the 5ft 4ins multi-millionaire whose life led him from living above a shop in Wincobank, Sheffield, to a mansion at in Windsor, via sell-out shows at Madison Square Garden, New York, MGM Grand, Las Vegas, and elsewhere.

1 Naz burst on to the Sheffield fight scene after his trainer Brendan Ingle said he'd seen Hamed as a seven-year-old boy fighting off a gang of bullies in his schoolyard. It was a good story - but completely fabricated.

2: As a school kid, Naz enjoyed woodwork and was a stamp-collector for a while.

3: His beloved Dad Sal initially had reservations about his son going into the fight game at seven, but supported him nontheless.

3 While he often fell out with Ingle, (once calling him a Judas on Sky TV after a row over money) he now recognises the St Thomas's gym environment was just what he needed as he developed towards maturity.

4 He memorised Muhammad Ali's ultra-confident style, both in and out of the ring, even including the great man's facial expressions.

5 Ingle had tried to clone the style of Herol Bomber Graham into his fighters, and while Naz said he initially embraced it: "I changed my sh*t up" harnessing power through leg stance and movement, which he said was a gift from God.

6 At just 16, Naz sparred with a British and Commonwealth title challenger - whom he outclassed so easily that the boxer quit the sport rather than take the chance to win a Lonsdale belt and collect an £18,000 purse. He was easy to hit, said an unapologetic Naz.

7 Hamed was not a Prince, in his family's homeland of Yemen, or anywhere else. But he was treated like royalty in the Middle East country, being feted with a £10,000 Rolex watch, a ceremonial dagger and a Mercedes.

8: At home, he was subjected to racist abuse from fight fans, both as an amateur and a professional. He brushed it off.

9 As a teenager, he had a job as a telephone engineer in Sheffield. But he pulled the plug of shifts longer than three hours.

10 His promoter Frank Warren said he knew Hamed would be a massive box office draw, from the moment he'd seen him, following a handful of fights when he was represented by Barry Hearn and Micky Duff. Warren persuaded ITV to follow his early fights before negotiating an enormous contract with Sky.

11 Naz's pro career may have ultimately been brilliant, but it was built on hard work; seven national titles as a 67-fight amateur.

He was in inspired mode when he backflipped into his winning pro debut a 112-pound flyweight at Mansfield leisure centre, dressed in a leopard print poncho and shorts, along with a dodgy 1992 haircut.

12 In 1994, after just 11 fights he was crowned European bantamweight champion, beating Italian Vincenzo Belcastro, at Ponds Forge Arena. He earned £12,500 and Warren threw in a jeep which Hamed had had his eye on.

13 In 1995, shortly before fighting Enrique Angeles at Shepton Mallet, a peckish Naz wandered into the media room and started munching into a sandwich - astonishing hardened hacks.

14 In the same year, he won his first world title, beating Steve Robinson in Cardiff, before 15,000 hostile spectators. Naz had been so confident that he told the Welsh featherweight they should combine the purses for a winner-takes-all fight. Robinson decided against that. The eighth round KO proved that to be a correct decision. It was only Naz's 20th fight, and he was now wearing the same belt once sported by Oscar De La Hoya and Thomas Hearns.

15 Not everybody warmed to the new kid on the block's arrogant style, boxing commentator Larry Merchant saying: “If ego was a crime, the Prince would be on death row."

16 In 1997, Naz broke into the American market, with celebrity-style posters adorning Times Square, in Manhattan, and to this day most boxing veterans retain a warm spot for his memorable scrap with home boy Kevin Kelley in New York. Donald Trump and Pierce Brosnan watched spellbound as Kelley lasted just four rounds.

17: He said while he started boxing training in the 1980s, Naz never started street-running until the age of 19 explaining there was no need: "I had ring fitness."

18: Round 2 was his favourite round, as many of his rivals were to discover.

19: Naz claims he never lost a single round in gym-sparring in his whole career. He'd "accidentally on purpose" hit a sparring rival's head, on occasion, when he was supposedly to restrict himself to body punches. Something mentally switched when he climbed through the ropes, whether he was up against a pal or not. Kell Brook was later to adopt a similar, ruthless attitude.

20: He said he once broke cruiserweight and gym pal Johnny Nelson's nose in training.

21 He made headlines after an altercation with super middleweight Chris Eubank at Heathrow airport, the taller man hurling Naz's world title belts on to the floor. Eubank ended up with a cut lip. The pair get along these days, though.

22: By January 2001, Hamed had reportedly amassed a fortune of £50 million.

23 But by April he suffered his only loss, to Marco Antonio Barrera, when he was bullied so visibly that Vegas fans watched aghast as the Mexican intentionally slammed Hamed's head into a turnbuckle. Naz said he was weight-drained and had previously suffered a broken hand.

24 A year later, the Sheffielder outpointed a limited Manuel Calvo at London Arena - and despite repeated promises never fought again. The bout had been watched by 11 million people. But, at 28 years of age, the glittering Naz era was over.

25: Naz believes pound-for-pound defensive genius Floyd Mayweather's style was "a little bit boring."

26: Hamed's post-boxing life has been a comfortable one, mainly but not exclusively out of the same spotlight he once loved. He lives well and his lifestyle saw him balloon in weight. In 1998, he'd wed his hairdresser girlfriend Eleasha, 24, in Sheffield and the happy couple have been together ever since.

27: In 2006, he was jailed for 15 months after a crash causing serious injury on Ringinglow Road. He only served 16 weeks before being released on an electronic tag. He was stripped of his MBE.

28: In 2015, he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

29: Eleasha and Naz have three sons Aadam, Sami, and Sulaiman and while he misses some aspects of boxing the devout Muslim describes his life as a healthy and prosperous one: "Everything is gravy, baby."

30: His hobbies appear to have included snooker, top-of-the-range cars, and music. He once recorded a song with a hip-hop group, but it never made the top 20.

31 Last October, the paparazzi said Aadam and Michael Owen's daughter were dating and were holidaying in Dubai. Next-gen Aadam launched his own boxing career with a farcically one-sided, one round contest in Poland, on the undercard of Oleksandr Usyk v Daniel Dubois. Even his dad never had it that easy.