When Naseem Hamed fought Marco Antonio Barrera, his focus was on everything but the fight

The significant favourite for the fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena against his long-term target Marco Antonio Barrera, he was paid $6m of the $7.9m purse that then made Hamed-Barrera the richest featherweight fight of all time.

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Hamed had, however, also had to lose 35lbs to make the 9st featherweight limit. A broken hand he had suffered and the period of rest that followed had contributed to his weight gain, to the extent that there were those around him who later reflected that that night of April 7 he should never have been in the ring.

"At this point in time I've got one guy on my mind, and that's Barrera," Hamed told the cameras granted access to his often amateurish pre-fight preparations for the documentary Little Prince, Big Fight. The reality, however, is that that rarely appeared the case.

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Conviction in Hamed's undoubted potential as an entertainer was such that HBO, then the most influential force in boxing, had invested in a 50x20ft billboard in Times Square to lead an advertising campaign surrounding his thrilling US debut against Kevin Kelley in December 1997. His performances since then had regardless done little to enhance his reputation - he was particularly disappointing when outpointing Cesar Soto in Detroit in October 1999 - and he had since been advised by the promoter Lou DiBella, incidentally once of HBO, to fight Barrera, the Mexican great.

In a world yet to be transformed by the horrors of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Hamed's Yemeni heritage had already made him a favourite among the American-Arab population in New York that had rarely had a hero. He was regarded as the world's leading featherweight, remained popular in the UK, and had become one of boxing's biggest figures; the intention was to further his already impressive commercial appeal.

"In the States, interest in the lighter divisions is largely Hispanic," observed none other than Bob Arum, who successfully applied a similar logic when working with Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines. "To draw crowds [in the US], Naz needed to fight a name Hispanic."

While the rugged, hungry Barrera - who so recently had lost the first fight of his trilogy with the equally great Erik Morales - trained at altitude in the mountains of Big Bear in California, Hamed and his team headed to the heat of Palm Springs and a luxury villa once owned by the singer Bing Crosby. "There's no distractions," claimed one of his brothers, Nabeel. "We're here in the warmth and he's up there in the cold."

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The narcissistic Hamed - then almost always led by his persona of the 'Prince' - regardless repeatedly succeeded in finding distractions. There was a visit to a local driving range where he was given a lesson; five weeks before fight night another brother, Riath, was in Vegas to help prepare his latest grandiose ring walk; there was even a phone call to the president of the MGM Grand to demand he release one of the mansion suites typically reserved for its elite gamblers, before he concluded the 6,500 square foot alternative with pool table, bar and steam room would suffice.

"Who else can I fear, apart from Allah?," Hamed had said. "I can't fear any human being. What's a human being gonna do to me? He's got two arms, two legs and a chin like me. Once you're hit with them shots, it's over; it's finished."

The decorated trainer Manny Steward, who arrived in Palm Springs with three weeks remaining to oversee the fight preparations led by the late Oscar Suarez, was, at least at the time of his arrival, similarly confident. "[Hamed's the] greatest featherweight of all time," he said. "He's going to score an electrifying knockout."

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That confidence was tempered somewhat after witnessing Hamed's first day of sparring, but even then he, somewhat prophetically, said: "He's punching too long; too wide. He'll be better by the next week or two."

Yet the closer the date with Barrera got, the more erratic the 27-year-old Hamed - whose career earnings topped £30m - and his preparations became. After arriving in Vegas via private jet on the Sunday before fight week, and insisting in an interview conducted days later from the Vegas strip that "I'm in the best possible condition I could ever be in", his conduct continued to betray a distracted mind.

In a conversation with ring announcer Michael Buffer about the pre-fight introduction that would acknowledge his faith as a Muslim, and which would follow six signs - three with the name of the prophet Muhammad and three with the inscription 'Allah' - complementing his ring walk, an insight into the real Hamed was provided when he told Buffer: "It means more to me than the fight."

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Nabeel Hamed was the next to reveal his concerns when he spoke of being told that those in his brother's suite - which even closer to fight night was visited by Chris Eubank - had been having late nights. "It's all mental, this week," he said, when it was perhaps already too late.

Hamed had previously sent someone to Mexico to confirm that his Reyes-branded fight gloves were being made from goat skin, as he wished, and insisted, "I want them in green". Come the weigh-in, however - when his struggles to make weight were laid bare by his unimpressive physique - a lengthy argument erupted when he saw those Barrera had in yellow, and demanded that as the champion (they were fighting for the lightly regarded IBO title) he take them for himself.

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On the eve of his biggest and toughest fight Hamed was unhappy with the gloves he was on course to wear, and to the extent Steward and promoter Barry Hearn attempted to mediate and secure the yellow ones he had decided he wanted. When Barrera, fittingly, refused to relent the fight commissioner instead ruled that they would both wear red; another dispute then followed regarding the length of the 'Prince's' walk to the ring. Hamed, similarly, had one last visitor, pre-fight night, in the sycophantic barber flown in from LA with the intention, as Hamed put it, of making his hair 'absolutely perfect'.

Hamed's dissatisfaction with the gloves he had been allocated, while warming up, contributed to their fight being delayed, and Barrera being made to wait to enter the ring despite being ready. When Hamed finally started his elaborate ring walk he was soaked with beer by someone in the crowd, and at the last moment decided against his trademark somersault over the ropes, owing to his lack of faith in his gloves.

From the opening bell the compact Barrera - who rarely strayed from his high guard - capitalised on Hamed being loose to the point of sloppy to consistently edge forward, and caught and hurt the favourite with a left hook. Hamed, no doubt reliant on landing one fight changing punch, swiftly became frustrated.

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In the second round he attempted to wrestle Barrera to the canvas; his attempted punches also became wilder, further jeopardising his balance and in turn inviting Barrera to land both jabs and hooks. By the final rounds Steward had warned him he needed a knockout, but instead of him threatening one with one last aggressive spell in the 12th, in a show of machismo he was manhandled and pushed into the corner post by Barrera, aware he was so far ahead he could risk the point deduction that followed.

Two scores of 115-112 and another of 116-111 in Barrera's favour followed, as, mystifyingly, did a round of applause from those present for Hamed in his changing room when he had returned to absorb his first defeat. "I'm now nowhere near as sad as I thought I would be," Hamed said in another moment of honesty - again suggesting he had perhaps never wanted to be in the ring.

Suarez - speaking to the same cameras that had followed Hamed around from Palm Springs to Vegas, ultimately capturing the causes of his decline - added: "He'll be back and they'll see the difference next time." There was, however, never to be a next time. Hamed resisted activating his rematch clause, and instead fought only once more, in London against the little-known Manuel Calvo 13 months later, when aged 28 he struggled to impress in victory and was booed.