In his home town, in front of his fans, Naseem Hamed is in danger of being upstaged by boxing's master poseur, Chris Eubank, who returns at the Sheffield Arena trying to regain the World Boxing Organisation super-middleweight title he lost to Steve Collins in 1995.
He fights Joe Calzaghe, an undefeated, largely untested 25-yearold Welshman, as Hamed defends his WBO featherweight title against Jose Badillo of Puerto Rico.
While Hamed is a huge favourite to record his 28th consecutive victory and move on to lucrative new pastures in the United States, Eubank-Calzaghe is viewed as a "pick-em" contest. Such is the interest that Sky Television has moved the super-middleweight fight to last on the bill, the position traditionally reserved for the principal attraction.
Eubank said being given a title opportunity was "like winning the lottery", and even though his last two fights have been in the lightheavyweight division (12 st 7 lb), he had no hesitation in taking the chance to gatecrash the big time once more when the champion, Steve Collins, pulled out and announced his retirement.
At 31, with 49 professional fights in a professional career spanning 12 years, Eubank's best days may be behind him. And there are serious doubts about how effective he can hope to be at 12 st, having blamed weight-making difficulties for his only two defeats, against Collins in 1995.
His incentive is probably financial. While Eubank protests he is solvent, it took a threat of legal action to persuade him to pay a £120,000 American Express bill recently.
Eubank is being paid around £200,000 tonight, a major step down form his glory days when he could command as much as £1 million a contest. But he could move on to challenge the WBO light-heavyweight champion Darius Michalczewski of Germany in a huge fight at some stage. Eubank's extravagant lifestyle apparently goes on. Yesterday, rather than drive from his Brighton home to Sheffield or take the train, he chartered a helicopter, at his expense, to fly him north. He failed to show up for a head-tohead press conference because of high winds which delayed his take-off at Gatwick Airport, leaving the likable Calzaghe to describe how he believed he would win the fight.
"I think fitness will be the key. He'll try to buy time and conserve his energy early on by posing, but I'm not going to let him do it. I'll be fighting him like Steve Collins did, making him battle for three minutes of every round."
Critics have said Calzaghe is a technically ragged arm puncher. He bridled at the suggestion: "Tell the 21 people who I have knocked out in 22 fights that I can't punch properly."
Hamed has made a customary boast for prediction that he will beat Badillo in three rounds, but the Puerto Rican is no mug and came close to beating Tom Johnson in an International Boxing Federation title fight two years ago.
Despite that, the Prince's adoring Sheffield public should see their man prevail against a strong, game southpaw opponent around the sixth to ensure a glittering future.
