A quarter of a century ago it was time to take flight from a shivering early spring in England to the shimmering warmth of Southern California.

There, in the celebrity paradise of Palm Springs, British boxing royalty in the personage of Prince Naseem Hamed was in residence at fabled crooner Bing Crosby's old house.

Within the luxuriance of that gated estate Naz was in training for the most testing fight of his life.

His rival for the vacant world featherweight championship, the great Marco Antonio Barrera, was sharpening his Mexican warrior instincts and honing his surgical skills in the thin air of a spartan high altitude camp on nearby Big Bear mountain.

We should have been warned by that contrast. But upon our arrival in paradise the weekend before the fight, Hamed put on such a scintillating exhibition in the temporary state-of-the-art gym that we were bedazzled. Ever the showman, given an audience he shadow boxed at express pace with unending shifts of direction, punching the gloves with machine-gun intensity and the bags at light speed.

The floor exercises would have won gymnastic gold at the Olympics. The heaviest of weights were hoisted aloft time and time again without a stutter. The sweat of more than an hour's non-stop high-octane exhibition flowed into a climax of rapidly repeated neck springs from a prone position. As if in reverse of the hand springs over the ropes with which he always flew into the ring.

There was not so much as a split-second pause for breath as he yelled: 'What do you think lads?' The answers: 'Wow' and cheers to rattle Mr Crosby's crystal chandeliers.

Little did we know the price he paid for that virtuoso performance he could not resist.

Those hands made forever brittle by their devastating impact on opponents suffered further fractures.

The effort accelerated his weakening by a struggle to make weight which continued into the sauna in Sin City on the morning of the weigh-in.

As word of his deceptive work out reached the Las Vegas sports books he was installed as the clear favourite. The odds tipped further towards him by Barrera being tempted by his record purse to move up a weight division to do battle with Hamed the undefeated UK KO phenomenon.

Reality as well as Barrera was waiting on The Strip, in the MGM Grand Garden on the night of April 7th 2001. A truth as ironic as the title of the movie about Hamed's life and times which starts lighting up cinemas near you this Friday.

'I knew I had little chance,' he said after rising from midday prayers on a visit to London from his second home in Dubai this week. 'But I had been waiting for Barrera so long that I could never have pulled out.'

Giant is the name of the movie. The only measurement which could come physically close to that description would have to be taken by a tape around his girth in his mellowed and content retirement now. Not his height of 5ft 3in in his fighting prime. But since when did the movie industry let attention to detail interfere with a good storyline?

So let us acknowledge that he was a giant figure in boxing and and a monstrous crowd pleaser.

There is no mention of the Palm Springs rental in the one hour and 50 minutes of celluloid. Not that Naz is surprised. Not one bit.

With the blistering honesty which has been never diluted he makes the Freuds PR machine shudder to a halt as he passes judgment on the film so scathing that he is already in discussion with Mark Wahlberg 'for a documentary which will tell the truth of my life. Not this fiction which is so far from the truth that I cannot begin to give the details of every falsehood.

'I don't want to sound bitter but the makers of Giant have written and made a film which is scripted to their imagination so as to attract the public.

'I'm happy with my life now with the family. But I have to set the record straight.'

The kernel of the argument is that 'while I was never at any point asked for any input they relied on the word of my first trainer's son.'

The film hangs itself on the collapse of Hamed's relationship with the late Brendan Ingle, whose reputation he hereby demolishes: 'The film makes it look as if I treated him badly when we split up. The truth is that it collapsed under his greed. Money is not the root of all evil. The people who want more and more of it are.'

The way Ingle tried to hold the six-year-old boy wonder to a handshake on 20 per cent of all future earnings unfolds here in a moment.

First he denounces the film for blaming the one and only but secretly inevitable defeat in his 37 fight career on one of the greatest trainers of all time... on the say-so of the home-town coach he jettisoned in hope of finding a way to beat Barrera.

Emanuel Steward, who developed squadrons of world champions in his hard-knocks Kronk gym in Detroit, was alarmed when he arrived in Palm Springs to find Hamed behind schedule in making weight and complacent in sparring against the hungry young Mexicans he brought in to give Hamed a fore-taste of the menace to come. The latter would prove to be more crucial than the physical exercise.

But then, actually, this movie is as much if not more about Ingle, who was an Irish icon among boxing trainers in northern England, than it is about Hamed himself.

Giant is at its most lucid and convincing in the long, lingering scenes which depict Ingle teaching little Naz how to fight bullying by bigger boys in the schools and anti-Muslim racism on the graffiti streets of the steel city. Naz does not deny that without Ingle's care, he would have sunk into the seething, impoverished, resentful morass of juvenile delinquency.

Nor that his trainer from childhood to champion laid the foundation stones of Hamed's education in the noble art and craftwork of the ring. Hamed says: 'He provided the building blocks.' But he adds: I had to remind my mentor more than once: I am the who was born with the talent and the power.'

And oh but what unnatural power there was in both those fists.

The arrogant braggadocio and hands down mocking of opponents which offended much of the boxing community but excited the public appetite for spectacle appalled Ingle and would never have taken wing but for that literally stunning capacity for flattening almost every fighter put in front of him. Down they went to the canvas, up rose the punters from their seats as, yes, a star was born.

Yet the actual boxing plays a lesser part in Giant than all the over-wrought yet rather simplistic delving into the Hamed psyche and the Ingle relationship.

Yes, Naz believed from day one that he had the makings of greatness inside that short, skinny body. Yes, Bren was a very good trainer who also guided three other boxers to world titles. Got it.

But what about the fights? There is scant footage of Hamed winning his first world title by knocking out Welsh idol Steve Robinson in his Cardiff Arms Park backyard. Only brief flashes of the epic US debut in which he and American legend Kevin Kelley knocked each other down three times in New York's Madison Square Garden, with Naz landing the final and decisive blow in the fourth round.

We do see our man flying into arenas on a magic carpet and other contraptions but what did Rocky himself have to do with that? Sylvester Stallone is credited as an executive producer yet there is precious little ring choreography on offer.

Not even when it came to Barrera. Perhaps that is just as well since the only defeat on Hamed's record was inflicted on a Prince too weakened to defeat the consummate skills and boxing genius of Barrera. The decision was unanimous, the damage to that extravagance of self-confidence enormous. He only fought once more, A year later. Thankfully a victory well deserved for his electrifying contribution to the British ring.

Ingle, who declined to watch the broadcast back in Sheffield, has this said for him on screen when told that the early rounds had gone badly: 'No plan.'

Ingle is no longer here to authentic that remark. Nor is Manny Steward the master trainer to rebuff that insult but a veritable anthology of world boxing speaks for him.

The acrimonious split between Hamed and Ingle occupies much of the film's finale , not least with team Naz insisting that the trainer's fees be cut from a hefty 20 percentage of the purses to a flat fee. Not too difficult a case to make since Ingle's claim relied morally on that shaking of hands on a sweetheart deal when, as Hamed says: 'Who on earth would try that on with a six-year-old?'

The casting for the movie is shaky, also. Amir El-Masry, the Egyptian-born Palestine activist, is simply too big as the grown up Naz and his appearance often too doleful to express the vivacious energy of his subject. Pierce Brosnan seemed to be the ideal Irishman but is not at his 007 finest in a portrayal of Ingle as lightweight and uncertain as the script.

As for another Bond movie actor's take on Hamed's promoter as a cross between a caricature Cockney gangster and a second-hand care salesman, Toby Stephens should have been warned that Frank Warren is famously litigious.

Not that Hamed will be bothered. Born of Yemeni parents in Sheffield his legacy lies in being an inspiration to youngsters of similar origin to find futures in boxing, as well as forging inter-ciltural relations by being consistent in this philosophy: 'I am proud to be British, proud to be Asian, proud to be Yemen, proud to be Muslim, proud to be black.'

For all its failings, Giant can make enjoyable viewing by thrill-seeking boxing fans and a general public fascinated with larger=than-life personalities.

But there is much more left untold about the man behind the old flashy persona. Every minute I have spent chronicling Naz's extraordinary life and times has been time enjoyably and rewardingly spent.

After retiring he become almost reclusive. At peace with his wife Eleasha and his sons. He made portly reappearances when one of the boys, Aadam, began following his footsteps into the ring: 'Meet a star of the future.'

And on the golf course, especially Wentworth, where he has become expert at his replacement sporting passion; 'I m good enough to play to a 14 handicap and you'll be seeing more of me from now on.'

Not only on the course but out of hibernation. The Prince is back. For a start, as this publicists' nightmare declares; 'I have to correct all the inventions in this film. I understand the Hollywood way of doing these things but I need the truth to be told about how I really set boxing alight.'

The hard old game should brace itself for a return to the public eye by one of its most dazzling sports stars.

Meanwhile, Bill Crosby's old house, in which John F Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe reportedly shared an intimate tryst, is on sale now for $13.5 million dollars.

Prince Naseem Hamed will not be bidding.

*Giant will be in cinemas from January 9