Columnist Dean Juipe: Rahman lands in a tough spot

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2001 | 10:43 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

As an American Muslim with an Islamic name, and with Ramadan due to begin on the exact night of his heavyweight championship fight with Lennox Lewis at Mandalay Bay, Hasim Rahman is not in the most enviable of positions. Likewise, those with a stake in Saturday's promotion are very much aware that an anti-Muslim bias has the potential to impact such items as gate, closed circuit and pay-per-view receipts.

The plane crash Monday in New York City didn't help matters, either.

Rahman, of course, can't be faulted on any of these counts. He's a decent man who just happens to be the heavyweight champion at a time in history when prejudice and related sentiments are at something of a disturbing peak.

"I don't believe it will affect the way they view me," Rahman said of how he perceives the public sees him in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the East Coast. "Americans are logical enough and sensible enough to know a bad group of people does not represent a whole (religion).

"There are good and bad people in every religion."

Hasim Rahman is a native of Baltimore and you may be as surprised as I was to learn that it is also his given name. But there are a lot of Rahmans in the Middle East -- including an ambassador from Pakistan, Hasan Abdel Rahman -- and, arguably, the marketability of a celebrity with Islamic ties could be negatively impacted at this particular moment in time.

That said, Mandalay Bay is hopeful of selling out its 11,400 seats for Rahman's fight with Lewis and it's known that the city's casinos responded with solid support when the host site offered ticket packages. A crowd of around 10,000 would be reasonable, especially after one insider with no affiliation to the hotel/casino business said "ticket sales were going good and then stopped cold" in recent days.

Gordon Absher of Mandalay Bay said tickets remain in the $1200, $900 and $600 categories, meaning that it's the $300 and $100 tickets that have been the most popular thus far.

In terms of how the fight will do on pay-per-view, it's anyone's guess yet it's a competitive and compelling rematch and it should do well.

The fight will also be available via closed circuit at 14 local sites, which compares somewhat favorably with the 15 sites that had last month's Felix Trinidad vs. Bernard Hopkins middleweight fight from New York.

So, all in all, public response has certainly been adequate and there's nothing to indicate Rahman's religious beliefs are being held against him. Nor should they, of course.

But he also has to deal with Ramadan, which is a holy month that begins when Muslim leaders sight the crescent moon, which is expected to be Friday in some parts of the world and Saturday in all others. Ramadan requires all Muslims to fast from dawn to sunset.

"I won't start it that day," Rahman said of fasting at the outset of Ramadan. "I'll have one day to make up."

OK, fair enough. Yet Rahman has to quietly be wishing this fight was being held some other day, some other month, some other time.

He has to be aware of the distractions.

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