Boxing: All strut and no substance for Naseem

Punters turn their backs on the Prince as long absence from the ring ends in a hollow victory

Naseem Hamed ended his 13-month sabbatical amid a chorus of boos, jeers and catcalls last night, even though he comprehensively defeated a 34-year-old honest tradesman from Madrid, Manuel Calvo, over 12 rounds.

They were 12 rounds which lacked snap or sparkle, and Hamed's performance was the subject of the 10,000 sell-out crowd's derision from the fourth round. In unprecedented scenes at a big fight they even began walking out after the ninth.

The 28-year-old Hamed may well have imagined he had engaged in a satisfactory workout but his audience were far from pleased at watching a performance that was untidy, uncomfortable and unconvincing. The little Spaniard, who began by looking as if he would have been far happier to stay at his bar in Madrid proved not to be the easy touch we had anticipated despite a ring absence that was almost as long as Hamed's. In the process of his victory Hamed acquired the International Boxing Organisation title, a trinket so meaningless that when it was on offer as part of the deal in Hamed's losing bout to Marco Antonio Barrera in Las Vegas last year, the Mexican refused to accept it.

Calvo, who has never been knocked off his feet, relinquished his European title to take what many believed would be his final pay-day against the returning Hamed. But while the margin on the scorecards of the three judges was overwhelming, two of them scoring it 120-110 and the third 119-109, it proved very little about Hamed's ability to return to the top echelon of the featherweight division. It was far from a princely performance, though he never stopped grinning, even when the crowd resorted to the football chant: "You're shit and you know you are.''

Their exasperation was understandable for Hamed had promised so much in the build-up to the fight. At least this time his ring entrance was rather more conservative than of old, no religious ranting, just rap, with the expletives undeleted, and a raptuous reception.

Initially there was no strut and no swagger but by the third round it was almost as he had never been away when he began his erstwhile showboating, showing flashes of his old arrogance as he shuffled and laughed in Calvo's face. This seemed to evoke a more spirited response from Calvo, who had suffered a contusion under his left eye even though Hamed seemed to have done more posing than prodding.

"Don't rush it,'' Hamed's corner-man Oscar Suarez urged but his fighter seemed to have little intention of doing so. Maybe he was treating the bout as a bit of convalescence after the way he had been dismantled by Barrera.

Sensationally he found himself on the floor in the seventh, the victim of a slip on a pool of water in Calvo's corner. By the eighth we were beginning to wonder whether Hamed, who seemed to have lost his rhythm, had also lost his punch. He seemed intent on gazing at Calvo's feet, perhaps trying to work out the Mexican's moves. Never a noted puncher, Calvo posed little threat, but Hamed seemed reluctant to take risks. When the bout ended in only the fifth points decision in his 10-year career we had to wonder whether the former world champion would ever regain his old vitality.

We saw the worst of Hamed in Las Vegas; we may never see the best of him again. The fact that, in the best traditions of Sheffield's finest he had to do a full monty to make the weight suggests, as many suspected, that he was having to sweat off the pounds to make the nine-stone limit. The old Naz would never have succumbed to such unprofessionalism. The reborn one, it seems, is willing to cut a few corners.

The fight was not mainline attraction on the live show screened by HBO in the United States. Hamed still has to convince the television company of his worth and his lack of firepower last night will not have enhanced his cause. He claims he still hankers after a return with Barrera, though first the Mexican has to come through a tough return against Erik Morales, and Hamed is more likely to take on the flamboyant and experienced American Johnny Tapia who holds another variation of the world title, that of the International Boxing Federation.

More immediately there could be a domestic battle with Manchester's Michael Brodie, who survived a damaging fight with unorthodox Argentinian Pastor Mauro to win the World Boxing Federation title, which was vacant presumably because no one had heard of it.

In a back-to-basics war Colin Dunne of Liverpool successfully defended his World Boxing Union lightweight title when Manchester's Wayne Rigby retired at the end of the 10th. Dunne, who was floored twice to his opponent's once also acquired Rigby's IBO title in another piece of alphabetical nonsense.