When Prince Naseem Hamed met actor Pierce Brosnan in the lead-up to a new film, it brought back thoughts of a reconciliation with trainer Brendan Ingle that never happened.
An imagined moment gave Prince Naseem Hamed the vision of what reality could have been.
The reconciliation with Brendan Ingle which never occurred is a pivotal part of Giant, the biopic about the pair.
A regret the former world champion has learned to live with is that he never got the chance to make peace in person with his trainer and mentor.
"I always wanted that to happen," Hamed, now 51, told BBC Sport.
"But to see it unfold in front of me like it could have happened... I actually said to the director and the producer: 'I only wish that that last scene was really true, because I would have wanted that'.
"Because I was with him for like 18 years."
Giant, the new film starring Pierce Brosnan and Amir El-Masry, retells the coach and fighter's relationship. The story charts Hamed's rise from a seven-year-old growing up in Sheffield to a multi-millionaire global superstar under Ingle's guidance.
The movie, released in UK cinemas on 9 January, delves into how Hamed became a world featherweight champion by 21 and then the fallout with the Ireland-born coach later on.
Their relationship became strained as Hamed and his family grew irritated by the trainer's agreed 25% cut of his fight purses as they started to become big numbers.
Then a 1998 book, The Paddy and The Prince, written by Nick Pitt, completely soured the relationship. They split not long after Hamed's win over Wayne McCullough in the same year. It was a bitter parting.
As years passed and Hamed's career finished, he tried "many times" to reconnect with Ingle but the legendary trainer did not want to meet.
In 2018, Ingle died aged 77 and Hamed never got the chance to make amends. He could only deliver a public tribute to the man who had helped him reach the top of the world.
"He didn't want to have that final kind of meeting and to have to clear the air with it," Hamed said.
"If I was to say to you that there's no regret and I don't care, I'd be lying. Because I've got a heart and I felt like I started at the age of seven with him.
"He laid down the fundamentals and he taught me stuff from a very young age that I can never just not include - I can't say it was on my own and it was just a God-given talent.
"I have to mention him in a good way, not because I have to, because I want to."
Embrace of deep sincerity and lament of life - Brosnan
Ireland-born Brosnan stars as Ingle in the film, written and directed by Yorkshireman Rowan Athale. The Hollywood A-lister says that he wished his own meeting with Hamed this week, in the lead-up to the release, could have been a reunion with Ingle instead.
"[The meeting] had an emotional wallow in the sense that it would have been wonderful if it had been Brendan embracing Naz," said Brosnan, 72.
"The embrace had a heartbeat of deep sincerity and that kind of lament of life.
"Things that should have been and could have been. And that's the glory of this film. That's what makes the film so poignant and it's more than a boxing story.
"It's a father, son, how to be a man, a love story, promises made, promises broken. And all that's not given is lost, really."
Brosnan, born in Drogheda, was raised in the Irish town of Navan before he became a star actor, going on to play James Bond.
He met Ingle once, when he was in the dressing room on the night Hamed beat Kevin Kelley in Madison Square Garden in 1997.
El-Masry, who plays Hamed, lost eight kilos for the role and "religiously" studied the mannerisms of the flamboyant fighter.
Both men used a dialect coach, with Brosnan tasked with mastering Ingle's Irish accent, mixed in with a Sheffield twang.
El-Masry said the scene when they imagine the pair reconciling was the moment in the script he knew the movie was one for him.
"That's what it needed for sure. We wanted to see [it] in real life happen," said the 35-year-old actor, who was raised in London.
Ingle gym was 'one big happy family'
Hamed had no input into the film's making but is delighted a movie has been made about him. Brendan's sons, Dominic and John, were involved and are happy with how the film portrays their father.
While telling Hamed's story, it also documents Ingle's own journey. Born in Dublin, he moved to Sheffield and opened a boxing gym in an old church hall in the Wincobank area of the city.
There he would coach world champions Hamed, Johnny Nelson, Junior Witter and Kell Brook but it was a gym open to anyone from any part of society of any level.
And it became famous for Ingle's unconventional training methods which allowed his boxers to become flamboyant and cocksure with fancy footwork.
Brosnan and El-Masry agreed Ingle provided a "safe space" for his fighters.
"Brendan would say his own words, 'liquorice allsorts'," added Hamed, born to Yemeni parents.
"All different backgrounds, all different races, it was just a melting pot.
"He always would say that the barriers are always down, they're not up.
"We was all one big happy family in that gym and that was because of him. In that gym, I can honestly say to you, there was never ever a sense or a feeling of racism."
Brosnan added: "[Ingle] gave of his life and his energy and passion to the young men in his community there in Sheffield."
More boxing from the BBC
Category: General Sports
