LAS VEGAS – At last. After all the shenanigans by promoters, lawsuits over rights and fights, and court case upon court case, Hasim “The Rock” Rahman has the chance to prove his stunning fifth-round knockout of Lennox Lewis last April was no fluke, and Lewis gets the chance to prove it was.
They’ll meet in their long-awaited, court-mandated rematch tonight with Rahman’s 15-minutes of fame on the line as well as Lewis’ legacy as a heavyweight champion. Lewis has said he’ll retire if he loses to Rahman again. Perhaps he should, given the stature his career will be in.
Lose and Lewis, who had not been beaten since ’94 and held some part of the heavyweight title since ’97, will never be considered as one of the great heavyweight champions of all time. He’ll be known for lacking the chin and charisma of Ali, the heart of a Holyfield, and the power of Tyson.
But if he can regain the heavyweight title tonight, as he is favored to do, Lewis can continue the restoration of his reputation. Either that or he should quit.
“He realizes that he has put himself in a position that if he loses this fight, he retires,” Lewis’ trainer, Emanuel Steward, said. “So, this is it for him. (If he loses) all of his accomplishments will be pretty much squashed down. The Holyfield fights, the Golota and Tua fights, all of those will be forgotten. He’ll just be remembered for the fights with this man. He has to go back and win this fight, whether it be by knockout or not.”
Lewis (38-2-1 with 29 KOs) has brushed away his loss to Rahman (35-2, 29 KOs) in South Africa as the result of a “lucky” punch in a fight he would have ultimately won. Furthermore, Steward has said Rahman once told him he was “about to quit” himself just before landing the right hand that crumbled Lewis along the ropes.
“I looked at the fight and even spoke to Rahman,” Steward said. “He’s a little different now that he has time to become a great speaker. He was about to quit himself, and when you look at the tapes, his eye was bleeding, he looked at the ref and almost started walking back to his corner. Just then everything happened. Lennox bounced off the ropes at the perfect time at the perfect angle.”
When asked if he told Steward he was “about to quit,” Rahman recalled no such conversation. “It’s a lie,” Rahman said. “I told Emanuel, with the blood coming in my eyes I didn’t know how long the fight would go. I was really thinking ahead of myself. I was under the impression that the fight was going to be stopped, because the blood was going in my eye. I never told him that. That’s just a ploy they use to motivate Lennox, among other things.”
Rahman’s knockout of Lewis instantly avenged ugly defeats to David Tua and Oleg Maskaev. When asked if that was the best punch he’d ever thrown, Rahman smiled and said, “It was the one that counted the most. I hit him with right hands all night long. I thought one would get through and do damage.”
The Lewis camp still sees it as a lucky punch that shouldn’t repeat itself tonight. There will be more movement to stay away from the right hand, and Lewis could use the uppercut more against what figures to be a crouching, charging Rahman. “Lennox cannot get knocked down because if he gets knocked down the ref won’t give him a break,” Steward said. “He has to stay on his feet.”
Rahman said despite the continued charges of a quick count or lucky punch, he knows Lewis has more respect for him than he is showing. “He respects me inside the ring,” Rahman said. “So whatever he leads on in the media, it’s really not important. What’s important is that I get respect in the ring.”
Rahman wasn’t considered in Lewis’ class before the first fight. Whether that was a fluke or the beginning of the end for Lewis will be known tonight. “I think it’s going to be a fight where Lewis is going to get hit and may get hurt in this fight again,” Steward said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a walk-over fight with the guy. I think it’s styles to some degree, like Ali and Norton. There are just certain styles that certain guys are going to have a problem with. And in those cases you can’t win the fight on your talents alone. You might actually have to outfight a guy.”
