The Baltimore Express arrives

WITH HIS battered left eye closing after a few rounds and his shot at stealing the heavyweight title beginning to slip away, Hasim Rahman was not about to give up on his carefully planned fight strategy. At least the part about winning.

So when the champion, Lennox Lewis, looked as if he was about to seize the momentum in their fight, Rahman, with blood streaming into his eye, did the only thing left to do.

``I had to keep on punching,'' he said. And with the biggest shot of his career, at 2 minutes 32 seconds of the fifth round, he clocked Lewis with a right across the chin, dropping him to the canvas and giving the world a new heavyweight champion.

``I really couldn't see some of Lennox's punches, but I'm a fighter,'' Rahman, 28, told a roomful of reporters and fans afterwards. ``I'm going to fight with one eye, or whatever.''

With one big punch, Rahman vaulted out of obscurity, capturing the International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Council championship belts in the biggest boxing upset in years and the biggest in Africa in decades.

Almost 27 years ago, in the Rumble in the Jungle, Muhammad Ali regained the heavyweight title with a stunning knockout of George Foreman in Zaire.

Comparing that bout to this one, as big as it was for South Africa, seemed a bit of a stretch, at least until the moment Rahman, the little-known challenger from Baltimore who started boxing only eight years ago, was crowned champion.

The fight at the Carnival City Casino outside Johannesburg was supposed to be just another stop on the road to a Lewis-Mike Tyson matchup.

Now what would most likely have been boxing's biggest payday ever is a fading fantasy.

A fight with Tyson, who is the WBC's No. 1 contender, could be in the cards for Rahman.

Asked about Tyson, Rahman said he would fight any heavyweight but would leave it to his manager to decide who and when.

A Rahman-Lewis rematch appears likely. The fight contract allows Lewis to demand one, and he said that he wanted another shot at Rahman. ``Any time you're ready,'' Lewis said, ``I'm ready.''

While full of praise for Rahman, Lewis (38-2-1) jokingly told the new champion that the knockout blow was lucky. His own performance, Lewis said, was excellent - at least until that final shot.

``I didn't recover from that punch,'' Lewis said. ``I landed on the canvas pretty hard with my head, and you know this is what happens in heavyweight boxing. But I feel good. I felt good in the fight and I felt I was winning the fight.''

Lewis landed just over half of his punches, while Rahman landed about a third of his. But with Rahman throwing 262 punches to Lewis' 161, the challenger landed nearly as many punches as the champion. Neither fighter dominated the first four rounds.

Only in the fifth round, with Rahman's left eye bloodied and swelling fast, did it appear that a decisive turn could come. Lewis seemed poised to exploit the injury.

Instead it was Rahman who made the decisive move. Chasing Lewis, he connected first with a solid right. Seemingly amused but apparently not alarmed by Rahman's abandon, Lewis grinned for a moment.

Rahman responded with a spate of good lefts. Then, seeing a chance, he unloaded the crushing right hand that levelled Lewis.

After hearing Lewis call his shot lucky, Rahman (35-2, with 29 knockouts) had his own say. ``Luck, somebody told me before, is being prepared when opportunity presents itself; and I believe we were fully prepared,'' Rahman said, smiling.

Stan Hoffman, Rahman's manager, said his fighter went into the bout intending to work Lewis until the champion opened up and allowed Rahman room to deliver a big shot. ``It was not an accident,'' Hoffman said. ``It was a plan.''

Whether Lewis was prepared for the fight was a question being asked all week before the fight. Rahman arrived in South Africa almost a month before the bout to begin training and to start adjusting to Johannesburg's high altitude (5,740 feet).

Lewis, juggling other commitments, including a movie role, did not show up until 11 days before the fight. ``People were making a big deal about getting acclimatised,'' he said. ``It wasn't a big deal at all. I felt fine in there.''

Defeated at age 35, Lewis' prospects look uncertain. He was five pounds heavier than he was for his last fight in November and seven pounds heavier than he was for the bout before that, about a year ago. He lost for the first time in seven years.

``For me to quit now would be a mistake,'' he said. ``I've always imagined myself going out on top, and that's definitely where I will be going, out on top.''

Never accorded the respect he believed he had earned, Lewis had hoped that a fight with Tyson might finally earn him standing among the great heavyweights in history.

Now he has to first try to win a title belt. (John Ruiz upset Evander Holyfield last month to win the World Boxing Association title.)

How soon Lewis will get a shot at Rahman's titles is unclear. After the fight, Hoffman said Rahman wanted his next fight to be a voluntary title defense back in South Africa, which before this had never been host to a fight of such magnitude.

Who the opponent will be is the question. ``We have the belts now,'' Hoffman said. ``Let them come to us.'' - New York Times News Service.

HENRI E. CAUVIN

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Not all is well in the world of billiards
Next     : Jha wins NIIT Open rating championship