Boxing: Johnson is different proposition

Naseem Hamed's title unification bout tonight looks tough. Ken Jones reports

When Tom Johnson tells you that his father and two of his managers met violent deaths, that he was almost blinded in a serious car crash and has formed a company to promote the benefits of spiritual meditation it is easy to understand why people think him to be different.

Different, that is, from the normal run of prize-fighters, different certainly from the brash Sheffield whizz-kid, Naseem Hamed, who has been drumming up tonight's contest for his and Johnson's versions of the featherweight championship as a collision between countries.

On first hearing Hamed put this forward as a saleable proposition - "It's Britain and the Arab world against the United States" - Johnson winced. He could not think of anything more ridiculous. "What we are talking about here is two guys defending their titles," he said. If Johnson had his way there would be no flags, no anthems. "It doesn't amount to any more than me and him. I'm not representing anybody but myself. In any case, how many people outside boxing in the US have heard of Hamed, how many have heard of me?"

As Johnson, 10 years the older man at 32, is being paid at least six times more than his previous highest purse of $175,000 (pounds 107,000) and reflects that defeat can be an enriching experience, the impression grows that this contest will be his swan-song. "In any case the result is already written," he said. "I don't know who wins but God does. If I lose I would understand that it was meant to be. I would understand that the Lord has something else in mind for me."

Trust in that philosophy, Johnson says, enabled him to overcome the disappointment of a points loss to Manuel Medina, one of only two on his 48 fight professional record, when first challenging for the International Boxing Federation championship in November 1991. "My trainers were upset because I didn't show any emotion. But the result couldn't be altered and before I left the ring I was already preparing myself for whatever lay ahead."

Due to the fact that Americans usually take a dim view of small sportspersons unless they are sitting on a horse, Johnson's defeat of Medina in Paris three years ago for the IBF title caused little interest in his homeland. It explains why six of 11 subsequent defences have been made in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Ireland. "I'm no stranger to the road," he smiled.

Married to a woman 15 years his senior, Johnson has three stepchildren and three of his own by a previous relationship, fathering the first, a boy, when he was only 16 years old.

No stranger to adversity, Johnson was only nine months old when his father was killed by a stray bullet during a bar brawl in Indiana. Ignoring Emanuel Steward's advice to try for a place in the US Olympic team, he turned professional in 1986 with Johnny Ace, who was murdered in a drugs-related incident. The body of Johnson's second manager, Keith Grissom, was found in the back of a stolen van. He has has since been managed by women, Jackie Kallen, from whom he split - "we're still friends" - two years ago, and now Don King's daughter, Debbie.

Articulate, calm, taking pride in acknowledgement of his intelligence, Johnson sees more for himself in tonight's contest than a pay day. "I'm by far the best this kid's fought," he said. "I respect Hamed's speed and power but all that dancing about doesn't impress me. I've got better boxing skills and if things aren't going Hamed's way I don't think he's got much to fall back on. The trouble is if I win people will say it was against an overrated opponent, and he wins that I was washed up anyway."

Since Johnson has been taken the distance in eight of his defences it is unlikely he possesses enough power to interrupt Hamed's spectacular progress or even make it a long night.

A laboured defence of the World Boxing Organisation title against Johnson's old adversary, Medina, in Dublin last August was explained partly by the chest infection Hamed picked up in preparation. Yet the untidiness of Hamed's technique after sending Medina over early suggested he may not be the fighter he likes to imagine. The difference is power, the power that should ensure Johnson is left without the option of trying for a decision.