Rahman vows to KO Lewis, Tyson

Dean Juipe

Thursday, Oct. 25, 2001 | 10:57 a.m.

He has earned the right to make a prediction and have it be heard.

And Hasim Rahman has not just one fearless forecast, but two.

"I think I will knock out Lennox Lewis and move right on to Mike Tyson and lay him out straight," the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion said in anticipation of his Nov. 17 showdown with Lewis at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

If Rahman disposes of Lewis, a fight with Tyson is apt to fall immediately into place. Should Rahman win both, he will not only distinguish himself as a champion with superior skills but as a man who evolved into a first-rate fighter only a year or two after it appeared as if he was inching toward the scrap heap.

Rahman, who is presently training in Big Bear, Calif., is 35-2 with 29 knockouts and brimming with confidence after defeating Lewis by fifth-round KO April 22 in South Africa.

Bettors at Mandalay Bay have put a few bucks on Rahman in recent days and made him a plus 310 underdog after he opened at a plus 320. Lewis opened as a minus 400 favorite and has been bet down, slightly, to a minus 380.

Each man is expected to receive roughly $10 million for the pay-per-view bout. Tickets for the Don King-promoted card are on sale and priced from $100 to $1200.

Rahman, who was paid $1.5 million for his April fight with Lewis, dismisses talk that his upset victory was a fluke.

"For the first fight, I had bruised ribs (and) I couldn't even spar the last two weeks," Rahman said. "Hopefully I can stay injury free this time.

"I definitely will throw more punches than the first fight and throw different punches. Lennox can't keep me outside. I just feel like I have to get rid of him."

Lewis, who is training in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, is 38-2-1 with 29 KOs. He was a reigning champion through most of the 1990s and had looked all but invincible in three 2000 fights, turning back Michael Grant, Frans Botha and David Tua during an impressive run that preceded the fight with Rahman.

Lewis, 36, has said he will retire if he loses the rematch to Rahman.

Rahman, 28, implies that Lewis may as well go ahead and order his recliner and slippers.

"I could still show up at Mandalay Bay and pocket a nice payday, but that's not me," Rahman said. "It's up to me if I want to do a Buster Douglas and go home and never train, but that's not me. I'm looking to go out and train hard every day."

Douglas, of course, let himself go after upsetting Tyson in 1990 and relinquished his just-won championship as if it were unimportant to him. Rahman, conversely, says he's reveling in his new-found celebrity and position of authority.

"It's up to me to do what I want now," he said. "It's a dream come true and it allows me to do different things from a boxing point of view. It is a dream."

It's a dream that Rahman couldn't possibly have imagined after losses to Tua and Oleg Maskaev, each by TKO, although Rahman still has a bone to pick concerning the referee's decision to stop his fight with Tua after the 10th round.

"I don't feel like I lost to David Tua," he said. "I feel like they stole the fight from me. I was beating him easily every round and I wasn't afforded the opportunity to continue."

An after-the-bell punch by Tua caught Rahman and, as he says, the referee called it quickly when Rahman was slow to recover.

In succeeding fights, Tua was decimated by Lewis and Lewis, in turn, was beaten by Rahman when a solid right hand brought an end to their fight at 2:32 of Round 5. "Justice was served," Rahman said of the sequence of events that led to this huge boost in his career.

Now he gets a profitable rematch with Lewis and, he's sure, a fight with Tyson, which he seems very willing to discuss.

"It will be a war," Rahman said of facing Tyson. "I would have to attack his body and, you know, weaken him. I just have to counterpunch him a couple of rounds until he gets frustrated, then I can take control of the fight.

"He's susceptible to being knocked out and he's easy to counterpunch. He's the kind of guy that can be controlled easy."

To hear Rahman tell it, he's on a yellow brick road and can't be deterred. It remains to be seen if he's a seer or merely a temporary stand-in at the top of the sport's galaxy of stars.