Perhaps it is married life, or perhaps the memory of his flirtation with disaster in his last fight, against Kevin Kelley a week before Christmas. Whatever the reason, there is a new maturity about Naseem Hamed.
The 23-year-old World Boxing Organisation featherweight champion has appeared brash and boorish on occasion in the past, but there has been a quieter confidence in his demeanour this week before his title defence against Wilfredo Vazquez at the Nynex Arena in Manchester tonight.
As is routine with him, he predicts that his 37-year-old Puerto Rican opponent will be counted out in two rounds. Hamed's words may be disrespectful to this rugged veteran of 22 world title fights but they have a habit of being proved correct.
"I intend to get back to my boxing skills. I made mistakes against Kelley," Hamed said, a reference to being knocked down three times before scoring a thrilling fourth-round victory. "He wanted a war, so did I, and we decided that was the way it was going to be. But I know now that was crazy and shouldn't happen."
Hamed could have blamed pressure for his near defeat. There had been outrageous boasts from his camp that he was "better than Muhammad Ali". He had to play the publicity card necessary to hype up his first American appearance, and there was the knowledge that his girlfriend Eleasha had just discovered she was pregnant.
It is much to his credit that he now says: "Nothing affected how I fought; what's happened happened and that's it. But I know I shouldn't get hit like that, and I am a far better fighter than I showed that night."
Listening to Hamed it is clear he is once more paying close attention to the wise words of his trainer Brendan Ingle, who had become a worryingly peripheral figure during preparations for the Kelley fight.
Whenever Ingle has held court in Manchester this week, Hamed has been close by. When aides tried to usher him from a press conference, he said quietly "no, wait for Brendan". The unlikely bond between the little Arab and the white-haired Irishman seems as strong as ever.
