Giant: Film reopens old Naseem Hamed - Brendan Ingle wounds
The new film depicting the long and ultimately fractured relationship between Naseem Hamed and Brendan Ingle has provoked mixed views among senior Sheffield boxing figures who knew them well.
The pair worked together at the Wincobank gym from when Naz was around seven years old, until he left in 1998, aged 24.
Their relationship is the subject of a drama-documentary biopic 'Giant', which is now doing the rounds at UK cinemas, starring Pierce Brosnan and Amir El-Masry.
Brendan's sons John and Dominic were consultants.
Dominic has given his backing to its portrayal of events: "It was very realistic and almost haunting to a degree, very convincing" he said. "I am sold on the film; I think it will be a massive hit."
But Esham Pickering, an Ingle boxer for most of his 1996-2014 career, argues that the movie fails to capture the essence of those times.
"It was a film through the eyes of John and Dom, but it doesn't fit right with the way I saw things" he told The Star.
"Brendan always called me his 'best friend', and that meant a lot to me, but Naz has got a point about the financial side of things."
That is a reference to the share Ingle took from Hamed’s purses.
Tension had grown as the featherweight, and his brother railed against the 25 per cent that Ingle had demanded.
That amount is regarded by some as standard, but it later became contentious as purses escalated.
A scene in the drama-doc shows Ingle walking in a field with a school-age Naz, explaining to him that he should agree to that deal and that it should be binding throughout his future career.
That scene might have been dramatised, but Pickering, 49, while an ardent supporter of the coach, said that he felt it was probably genuine and that Brendan would have said that to the minor.
"Every week for the 10 years or so I was there, Brendan would say the same thing in the gym, his fighters should agree to 25 per cent.
"I love Brendan and miss him so much, (he died in 2018), but that scene was uncomfortable to watch. If Naz had been 11-years-old, it felt like there were serious safeguarding issues" he said, judging by today’s standards.
"As far as the rest of the film goes I enjoyed it.
"But I was there when Naz was at his best and the film was not how I saw it. It wasn't the real thing. It wasn't how it was, for me. All of it.
"The way Brendan was, the way Naz was.
"I had mixed emotions. People say it wasn't about money, but I know it was. A million per cent. It was a business. Brendan talked about money every day" claimed Esham, a father of three with a gym in Newark.
"But it was also about how Naz wanted one-on-one training and for Brendan to empty the gym and train him on his own."
Hamed, himself, has been quoted as saying: “It's unbelievable that you could have a trainer say to you when you're 11 and 12 how much money he's gonna take of yours and to try and brainwash you from a very, very young age and plant that seed.”
But another Ingle champion, Johnny Nelson, refuses to accept that Ingle had been solely motivated by finances.
He said on Boxing King Media channel that Naz was "making noise" about the money side.
"Remember, Brendan stayed in Wincobank to the day he died.
"He had one car, a van or a Volkswagen, didn't have jewellery, you couldn't tell if this man had £10 in his pocket or £10 million.
"Naz lived up the road in a shop, moved from there, bought half of Sheffield, lives in a big house, had every car going, every piece of jewellery going.
"Which one do you think was about the money, then?"
Meanwhile, another Ingle graduate, Glyn Rhodes, has his own thoughts on a film he is in "no rush" to see.
He believes Herol Graham's influence at Wincobank is never sufficiently recognised.
"I lived through that era of boxing in Sheffield" said Rhodes.
"I was there when Naz came to the gym as a young boy and I was there when Herol walked through the doors of St Thomas’s Boys Club to be trained by Brendan.
"I’ve trained alongside both of them and also trained both of them in my gym later in their careers and it really is all a remarkable story about the ups and downs in this game.
"It’s also very sad that it all ends up this way.
"There are always two sides to every story and sadly, Brendan’s not here to give his side.
"It’s a strange combination, the boxer/trainer/manager/father figure, and I’ve been all of those.
"I fell out with fighters and said I’d never speak to them ever again, but have done and fighters have fallen out with me.
"But the sad thing with Naz and Brendan was that they were a great team for many years and what they achieved together was unbelievable.
"But without a certain person, none of this would ever have happened.
"Without Herol 'Bomber' Graham this area would be very different.
"Before Herol arrived there wasn’t much boxing to talk about around here; but together Bomber and Brendan put boxing on the world map and everything else happened after that."