On Saturday night, the best featherweight in the world, Marco Antonio Barrera, will hold court in Las Vegas for a showcase bout against shopworn former champ Kevin Kelley. Also on the card is WBA champion Derrick Gainer, defending his title against Oscar Leon.

Yet somewhere in Sheffield, away from the spotlight and away from the prize ring, is the man who was going to bring the 126-pound division into the new millennium - the most exciting featherweight in boxing - and at the same time - the most disappointing.

So where have you gone, Prince Naseem Hamed?

May will mark the one year anniversary of Hamed's last bout, a clear cut but disappointing 12 round decision over Manuel Calvo - a snoozer that even drew boos from Naz' London supporters. And there seems to be no end to Hamed's hiatus, with a proposed bout with domestic foe Michael Brodie falling by the wayside, and wishful thinkers hoping that the Prince will return to action sometime in August.

But don't hold your breath, because frankly, Hamed doesn't need boxing anymore. He doesn't need the rigors of training (rigors he reportedly had little zest for anyway), doesn't want the public scrutiny into his business dealings and private life, and he doesn't need the money.

So why fight?

A loss to Marco Antonio Barrera in April of 2001 shattered his sense of invincibility forever, and though he was graceful in defeat, his love for the sport seemed to be battered out of him by the Mexican warrior. The return bout against Calvo was a glorified sparring session, complete with lack of fire and focus. Trainer Oscar Suarez has recently joined the line of deposed Naz trainers (Brendan Ingle and Emanuel Steward), and for all intents in purposes, the Hamed train had reached its final destination.

Little has been heard from Hamed in the months since the Calvo fight, and though what few statements he has made point to a triumphant return, it may just be lip service for a fighter that has lost the edge that put him on the verge of entering the realm of the greats.

It wasn't always that way, though.

An amateur and pro sensation in the UK before he was even a blip on the US radar, Hamed was as unorthodox as they come; yet he was also the owner of a concussive punch and a brash personality, making the diminutive featherweight a worldwide star in the making.

And word traveled fast. A grainy VHS tape found its way to me a year or so before Hamed's US television debut, and the footage of the young Naz - a dervish of avant garde energy - was unlike anything I had ever seen. And despite claims to the contrary, UK comparisons to fellow free spirits Herol Graham and Chris Eubank couldn't have been further off the mark, simply because of Hamed's punch.

At featherweight, Hamed hit like a welterweight, and you could tell just by the way his opponents fell at his feet. The punches, left or right, landed at freaky angles, and connected with a thud. And there were no flash knockdowns. Opponents went down fast, and they went down hard - all twisting limbs and bobbling heads.

They didn't get up either.

United States television appearances against Daniel Alicea and Tom Johnson followed, but nothing could prepare you for his live US debut - a December 7, 1999 bout with Kevin Kelley in New York's Madison Square Garden.

For weeks, Hamed - now a part of the HBO marketing machine - was everywhere. But even though the talk show appearances and media obligations were par for the course with any fighter, the building high billboard in Times Square wasn't. And since he was not a heavyweight and not American, he was a Madison Avenue anomaly, a 5-3 featherweight whose demand of such attention was beyond the scope of the industry's comprehension.

But Hamed reached deeper. Along Atlantic Avenue and Court Street in Brooklyn - a predominantly Arab-American neighborhood - pictures of the Yemeni bomber filled storefront windows. Here was a hero an ignored people had to call their own, and they made their presence known on fight night, packing the Garden for Hamed's coming out party. Not that Kelley didn't bring his own cheering section.

As the prelims ended and the main event approached, the Garden rocked with anticipation, with chants of "Ha-med, Ha-med" alternating with those of "Kel-ley, Kel-ley." It was an atmosphere that captured boxing at its best, and rivaled only by Felix Trinidad's Garden bout with William Joppy a couple of years later.

Luckily, the fight lived up to the hype. Hamed hit the floor a couple of times, then returned the favor to Kelley before scoring a fourth round stoppage. And when it was over, no one wanted to leave the Garden.

It was magic.

Yet little by little, by the time April of 2001 rolled around, the top guns at featherweight has started to find chinks in Hamed's armor - and they were taking notes - especially Barrera.

The punch never faded, though, and neither did Hamed's appeal. A multimedia star in his native England, Naz was the subject of numerous books, a presenter at award shows, and the star of a video game. In the States, the call went up for him to fight a "real" opponent, someone like Barrera.

He did, and despite his aversion to proper preparation, he brought his punch to Las Vegas. Unfortunately, little else came with him, and he was on the short end of a lopsided 12 round decision. He took his defeat like a champion should, with no excuses, and to boxing fans, a division dominated by a single fighter suddenly became one of the sport's most competitive.

So it should have been a good time for Hamed to show the stuff of a champion - he already showed his heart, now he needed to display the ability to pick himself up and come back from adversity.

But then came the layoff, a virtual media blackout, and most importantly, September 11.

Suddenly, a fighter who appealed to every race and creed (whether you loved him or hated him) became a symbol of Islam - not a problem to Hamed, who has never shied away from proclaiming or defending his faith, but obviously a security issue to those around him.

"Only a person with no feelings at all could have no sadness in their heart for the people who died on September 11, those innocent people whose lives were taken," Hamed told Geoffrey Beattie, author of "Prince Naseem - The Shadows of Boxing and Those He Left Behind".

Yet despite those thoughts, Hamed was going to be a target for some nut, especially if he fought in the States, where his flamboyant ring entrances and religious proclamations would not sit well with a country coming to grips with a tragedy precipitated by a Muslim - albeit an extremist psychopath. And after such a tragedy, can Hamed ever recapture the night of December 7, 1999 on US shores?

So the wait continues. And the featherweights fight. Quality fighters like Barrera, Morales, Marquez, Gainer, and a seeming cast of hundreds battle it out amongst each other, and the fights are good, no question about that. But where's the magic?

The magic sits in Sheffield. But if the flame has been turned off, it may never return.

"The core of my life, the center of my life, is Islam; boxing is far from being the most important thing in my life," Hamed tells Beattie in "Prince Naseem - The Shadows of Boxing and Those He Left Behind". "I've got a family, I've got kids. I've got me parents and my brothers and sisters and most of all I've got the worshipping of God. The most important thing in my life is the belief and the faith I've got in God."

And for boxing fans, that may mean the comet has run its course, and that a hall of fame career has been downgraded to a one-hit wonder.

That's the biggest disappointment.