Hitting on top of the world

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2001 | 10:41 a.m.

With little commotion and to polite applause from a small collection of fans sitting in the stands, in strode the heavyweight champion.

Fashionably late and with his fiefdom in tow, Hasim Rahman smiled easily and assessed the situation. His scheduled Tuesday workout in the Mandalay Bay Events Center came with a one-hour ceiling, yet he was neither dressed for the ring nor rushing to get there.

His world had clearly changed since his most recent public appearance in Las Vegas, where, as nothing more than a run-of-the-mill contender, he fought before a small crowd at the Hard Rock late last year.

Now, as the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation titleholder, he was king of all he surveyed.

"This is definitely a dream come true," he said. "I'm on top of the boxing world."

It was evident by the attention he was receiving, by the rush of reporters to his side and by his aura of confidence that Rahman had changed. Once desperate for a crack at a championship, he is now experiencing life with the shoe on a more coddled foot.

"I believe I'll get a little more credit this time," he said in a one-phrase-fits-all explanation for how he's perceived by everyone from fans to the judges who are assigned to his Saturday fight in the same arena with ex-champ Lennox Lewis.

Coming off a sensational fifth-round knockout of Lewis last April 22 in South Africa, Rahman is in something of an awkward position as he prepares for the rematch. On the one hand, he's the champion; on the other, there are many who feel his victory was nothing but a fluke.

"He doesn't have the pedigree I have," Lewis maintains. "He shouldn't be compared to me.

"He got me with a great punch (but) I don't believe that will happen again."

Bettors are tending to agree with Lewis, although he has been bet down from a minus 400 to a minus 340 in the Mandalay Bay sports book. Rahman, once a plus 320, is now a plus 280.

Rahman, 29, is 35-2 with 29 knockouts.

Lewis, 36, is 38-2-1 with 29 KOs.

To the winner of the rematch go the spoils of a likely future fight with Mike Tyson, to say nothing of widespread respect. And, in Rahman's case should he win, a general acceptance that he's a legitimate champion and not merely a stand-in who briefly capitalized on Lewis' laissez faire approach to the bout in Johannesburg.

Yet one man Rahman doesn't feel will ever accept him is Lewis.

"I think if I knock him out this time, it's not going to change their way (of thinking)," Rahman said, referring to Lewis and his trainer, Emanuel Steward. "They just can't accept the fact that I've got his number."

On a personal level, Rahman has mixed feelings toward Lewis.

"He respects me inside ... I know he respects me inside," Rahman said. "Other than that, he can do what he wants."

The latter reference would seem to address not only the fact Rahman and Lewis scuffled on an ESPN set last summer, but also the fact that Lewis called Rahman "an imbecile" during a recent conference call.

"Lewis doesn't know me," Rahman said. "How can he call me an imbecile?"

Married and with two children, ages 5 and 10, Rahman was forced into an immediate rematch by court order. Yet he doesn't begrudge the circumstances, saying "To me, I was better off being in court than at a bunch of wild parties. (Court) was a good distraction."

He won the first fight with Lewis when he backed up a solid right hand with one that was deadly potent.

"The referee could have counted to 20 and it wouldn't have made any difference," he said of flattening Lewis in the fifth round of a fight that was even until he brought out his sledgehammer. He did it, he says, because of a sense of urgency.

"I had to make my mind up right then and there," he said of his outlook going into Round 5. "I was under the impression that the referee was going to see blood in my eye and stop the fight."

Asked if the punch that changed his life was the best he had ever thrown, Rahman found a middle ground.

"It's the one that counted the most," he said, and his very presence in the spacious arena at Mandalay Bay -- a mere year after his subdued outing at the Hard Rock -- verified that claim.