HEY KID, YOU CAN BE THE NEW ME!

Hamed tells Galahad: Now you’re a world champion you need to complete my set of featherweight titles

NASEEM HAMED has told IBF king Kid Galahad to emulate him by winning his other featherweight world crowns.

Galahad claimed Hamed’s old IBF title against Jazza Dickens in August to fulfil his dream of becoming a world champion. Hamed (left) also won the lineal, WBC and WBO featherweight belts during his glory days in the 1990s and rang Galahad to tell him he needs to complete the set. Galahad, who makes his first defence against the seasoned Kiko Martinez (both left) this evening in Sheffield, said: “Naz rang me up and said, ‘You’ve got my old IBF title’. I said, ‘Yep’ and then we just started laughing. “He then said I’ve got to go and get his other belts and I said, ‘Don’t worry!’ Slowly, but surely I’m going to get them.” Galahad has often told the story of how he got into boxing as a kid when he met

Hamed at his local mosque in Sheffield and was advised by him to go to Brendan Ingle’s famous Wincobank gym.

He has been forever grateful and is quick to acknowledge the part Hamed has played in his success story. “Listen, if it wasn’t for Naz, I wouldn’t be in this position,” he said. “When I met him at my local mosque and told him

I wanted to be a champion, he told me to come down to Brendan Ingle’s gym.

“If he hadn’t told me to come down to this gym, then I wouldn’t be a world champion.”

Galahad believes former IBF super-bantamweight title holder Martinez will provide a stern test for his first defence. The Spaniard has had 54 fights in a 17-year pro career.

“Kiko has been operating at a very high level for a very long time,” he said. “I think he had something like 40 amateur fights with 30 knockouts.

“He also boxed for a European title when he was 20 or 21, which is very young.” Galahad should have too much for Martinez and

victory would keep him on course for a rematch with bitter Yorkshire rival Josh Warrington.

Galahad claims Warrington (below) knows he beat him when he won by a controversial split decision in June 2019 and says their careers have gone in opposite directions since. Warrington relinquished the IBF belt to pursue a big fight in the US, only to suffer his first pro loss to Mauricio Lara in February, and Galahad claimed the vacant title in August.

“What you’ve got to remember is the reason he’s nasty towards me is that since he boxed me, it’s all gone downhill for him,” said Galahad. “Since I boxed him, it’s gone upwards for me.

“I’m in his head, he knows he lost that fight. I don’t wish bad on any fighter, I hope he does go and win another world title and then we can have a unification fight down the line. He just needs to be a bit more humble.”

Kid Galahad v Kiko Martinez and Terri Harper v Alycia Baumgardner are live on DAZN.com from 7pm.