Naseem Hamed: Ranking revealed in new list of top 25 'pound-for-pound' boxers of the past 30 years

He is the most thrilling fighter to come out of Sheffield by a long chalk.

And he was the poster boy for global boxing in the 1990s.

But 'Naz' only narrowly scrapes into a new list of the top 25 'pound-for-pound' boxers of the past 30 years.

The one-time Wincobank showman, who only came second once in his fight career, is number 23 in the rankings.

And it might irk him to know that the man who put that single dent in his otherwise unblemished record, Mexican warrior Marco Antonio Barrera, comes 14 places ahead of him.

Pound-for-pound assessments are made by experts comparing boxers across weight divisions and across time.

They are influenced by the number of bouts, win-loss column, KOs, titles held and career endurance.

It also looks at the specific era when fighters compete - and while there were some decent names in Naz's era, it might not have been deemed to have been quite as competitive as other periods.

And the Sheffielder's boxing career, which started at the age seven at Brendan Ingle's gym, was done and dusted at the age of 28.

These days the multi-millionaire has three sons in differing phases of the sport and will turn 50 in the New Year.

The recent top 25, compiled by American sports publisher Yardbark, focuses purely on the past 30 years.

Naz's legacy matters to him - and he might take umbrage at his relatively low rank.

The platform seems to sum Naz up reasonably shrewdly, though.

“Taking Muhammad Ali's showman shtick to another dimension, the Prince was one of the most unique superstars of the 1990s," it reads.

“While his flashy entrances and in-ring agility generated publicity, Hamed (36-1) could crack.

“Blessed with uncanny knockout power, Hamed held a featherweight belt for six years and defended it 15 times.

“Larry Merchant (US broadcaster) referred to Hamed's peak - his American debut against Kevin Kelley in 1997 - as the featherweight version of Hagler-Hearns. The Brit left an original imprint on the boxing timeline.”

Yardbark's top three in their P4P list started with Manny Pacquiao, followed by Floyd Mayweather Jr and Bernard Hopkins, in third.

Others of interest to Sheffield ring fans include Roy Jones Jr (4th) who stopped Ridgeway's Clinton Woods in 2002, and Gennadiy Golovkin (15th) and Terence Crawford (16) who both beat Dore-based Kell Brook in 2016 and 2020 respectively.

At 17 comes Canelo Alvarez, who defeated Ecclesfield's Ryan Rhodes in 2011.

Hamed's place in P4P history might be subjective - but others have put him in the same approximate spot as Yarkbark.

In 2016, ESPN ranked Hamed at number 22 on its list of the last 25 years.

More recently, in August, BoxRec described him as the 22nd greatest European pound-for-pound boxer of all time and the 12th greatest British fighter.

The Ring magazine rated Hamed the 46th greatest puncher of all-time - just scraping into the top 50 will likely also be a body blow for the one-time ring impresario.