LAS VEGAS – Hasim Rahman faces a tough fight with Monte Barrett on Aug. 13 in Chicago, but if he emerges victorious and injury-free, he’s confident he can be ready to face Vitali Klitschko for the WBC heavyweight championship on Sept. 24.
“With the stakes that high, I’ll have no choice but to go right out of that ring [on Aug. 13] and into a training camp,” Rahman said following a workout here yesterday afternoon.
“Six weeks is enough time, especially if I’m already in good shape,” he added. “Our mindset is to give the public something exciting. We all know I’ve got enough heart. We all know I’m strong enough. We all know I’m smart enough. If we can put that all together then we’re going to give you something special, and that’s what we’re working on: putting it all together.”
Rahman, 40-5-1 with 33 KOs and five consecutive wins, will face the Queens native Barrett (31-3, 17 KOs) at the United Center to determine the No.1 contender for Klitschko’s WBC title. Klitschko had petitioned to make an optional defense against someone other than the Rahman-Barrett winner.
It would have been Klitschko’s second optional defense since winning the vacated title by defeating Corrie Sanders on April 24, 2004. But the WBC last week ruled his next fight must be a mandatory defense against the No.1 contender.
“Now we’ve got this guy where he has to fight or give up the belt,” said Don King, who promotes Rahman, Barrett and the WBA (John Ruiz), WBO (Lamon Brewster) and IBF (Chris Byrd) champions.
Klitschko was permitted to fight unheralded Danny Williams last December under the condition that he next face a mandatory challenger. But a bout with Rahman, originally scheduled to take place in April, was postponed three different times. An April 30 bout was stalled due to the champ’s thigh injury and rescheduled for June 18, but again postponed because the same thigh was slow to heal. Yet another bout, proposed for July 23, was postponed because of minor back surgery on April 19.
Klitschko’s back trouble prompted Rahman and Barrett to agree to meet for the interim WBC heavyweight championship, with the aim of guaranteeing a fight with Klitschko once he is healthy. But the champion soon insisted he would be ready by Sept. 24 and was looking to fight a lower-ranked opponent such as unbeaten (and unworthy) Calvin Brock.
But like much of the boxing public, the WBC wanted none of it. In a released statement, Klitschko tried to act as if the ruling didn’t disappoint him, saying: “There has been a lot of criticism against me lately, but now that I am healthy and able to fight, and know when my next fight will be, I am keen to go forward and show the critics and especially my fans who the real heavyweight champion of the world is.”
King repeated his desire to stage a tournament to determine a true heavyweight champion, much the way he did in the middleweight division, where Bernard Hopkins emerged as the undisputed champion. Klitschko is leery of dealing with King, though, and wants no part of a tournament.
Meanwhile, Golden Boy Promotions made two significant announcements yesterday: Sugar Shane Mosley has been named the company’s president of fighter relations, while Marco Antonio Barrera was named president of Golden Boy Mexico.
Barrera, the WBC super featherweight champion, will face IBF champ Robbie Peden of Australia in a pay-per-view unification bout on Sept. 17 at the MGM Grand. Mosley will face Jose Luis Cruz in a welterweight fight on the same card, promoted by Golden Boy.
