Boxing: Hamed `brainwashed' by Ingle

NASEEM HAMED'S turbulent relationship with his life-long trainer and mentor, Brendan Ingle, threatens to come under more pressure in the countdown to this month's World Boxing Organisation featherweight title defence against Wayne McCullough.

The wounds opened as a result of Ingle's book The Paddy and the Prince could well be deepened by a Sky television interview today with Hamed.

In the interview, Hamed brands Ingle "a Judas" and "money-orientated" and said the trainer "thought I was going to get knocked out" by Kevin Kelley in last December's New York fight.

Hamed also talks of Ingle "brainwashing" him and "training him as an amateur" in the Ringside programme.

"He [Ingle] must have thought I was going to get beat by Kelley, because that was when the book was coming out," Hamed said. "I know for a fact that it was a death-wish waiting to happen, a relationship ready to part. The book was a perfect thing to split it up."

Ingle will still be involved in the preparations for the McCullough fight and he will be in the corner on Hallowe'en night in Atlantic City. But his sons, John and Dominic, will be doing the training work. That almost leaves Ingle Snr as a well-paid observer.

Hamed adds: "Dominic and John will be training me for this fight. Brendan has take his pounds 75,000 on supervising and just watching. I will get one- on-one tuition that I've never had in my life.

"In 30 fights, I've never had one-to-one tuition as a world champion. I've gone into the gym and done a set routine like any other kid. The truth of the matter is that I've never had a proper trainer.

"I have realised after 17 years that Brendan is totally and utterly money- orientated, money-motivated. I am not angry, I am a mature man, who is more mature and wiser at 24 than Brendan and he is 58. Any other person would have sacked him. I made him a millionaire. It was like a marriage, like a bond. I feel betrayed. He is a Judas."

But Ingle denied this. "I have sweated blood and tears for him - I've been with him for 17 years,' he said. "You can't put a price on that - I have never been a Judas."