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Pastimes : Boxing: The Sweet Science -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LPS5 who wrote (3209)	4/20/2001 4:28:00 PM
From: LPS5	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10489

The poor man's champion Hasim Rahman has won respect where it counts most, reports John Rawling Friday April 20, 2001 The Guardian The taxi drivers shake their heads disbelievingly when you give the address in downtown Johannesburg. Durandt's Boxing Gym, where Hasim Rahman is working out before his fight with Lennox Lewis on Sunday morning, is in a part of the city visitors are told to avoid. Big businesses that once made the area South Africa's commercial capital have long since migrated towards the leafier suburbs. Towering office blocks stand empty and the plush hotels are closed. Street traders eke out a living on the roadside and the driver tells you that this is the car-jacking centre of this crime-ridden city, where human life is cheapest. But Rahman, a massive underdog as he seeks to claim Lewis's world heavyweight title, has earned the respect of the poor and disadvantaged who now try to live and work against this disturbing backdrop. While Lewis prepares, cocooned away from all semblance of hardship in a luxury hotel some 20 miles away, Rahman chooses to sweat it out alongside at least 30 others who hope boxing will one day provide a way out. The 28-year-old would-be champion has been in the city for almost a month and spent another four weeks training at more than 4,000ft above sea level in the Catskill Mountains of New York state. Whether or not he is good enough to provide Lewis with a genuine test remains to be seen but the intensity of his commitment to make good the greatest opportunity of his life cannot be called into question. Hasim "The Rock" Rahman leans on the ropes of the training ring, beads of sweat trickling down the scarred face that is the legacy of a horrific car accident 10 years ago which claimed a close friend's life and which he still finds too painful a memory to share in detail. Why the Rock? Apart from the obvious Stallone-related connotations he took the ring nickname for no greater reason than it alliterates conveniently with the correct pronunciation of the Muslim name he took from his stepfather, after his mother remarried when the young Hasim was only two years old. "It's the first time I've trained this hard," he says. "They say fights are won in preparation. It's cost me in the past but now I'm ready. And when we step in the ring, I'm not going to look across the ring to the other corner and say: 'This is me against Lennox Lewis, the heavyweight champion of the world.' I'm going to be looking at just another man, flesh and blood like me. "This means everything to me, my religion and my family. It's my dream and I believe in my heart I will be heavyweight champion of the world," he adds as his manager Stan Hoffman watches on in admiration. Hoffman, once a serious player in the music industry and now a respected man ager of fighters, has been around the block often enough to know Rahman has been selected as a supposedly low-risk challenger to Lewis. But he is quietly confident that his man has been seriously underestimated and is capable of springing a surprise. "Hasim is a pleasure to work with, just wonderful," says Hoffman. "He's done everything I hear the other guy won't do. His preparations have been great. He's still feeling the altitude a little [the fight arena is close to 6,000ft above sea level] but I think he will be fitter than Lennox. "We believe Lennox won't last the 12 rounds. We've got to stay out of trouble and outlast him. We have no secrets. Anyone can come and see us work out. There's no mystery about throwing a good left jab and body punches. There is nothing to hide." There is also no way of disguising the fact Rahman has two defeats in his 36-fight professional record, against Lewis's previous challenger David Tua and, more worryingly, against the hard- hitting but limited Oleg Maskaev. Rahman, who began boxing only when he was 20, dismisses the Maskaev defeat as being "my own fault. I thought he would be easy and didn't train properly." But he says, with some justification, that Tua should not have won their fight. Clearly ahead and out-boxing the New Zealander, Rahman was caught by a Tua left hook thrown after the bell to end the ninth round. "He should have been disqualified," Rahman says. "I had no chance of recovering and I was stopped in the next round. Anyone could see I was cheated out of it." By the side of the training ring is an advertising poster printed by a local newspaper. "Lennox: I'll beat the bum," it says. The famous faces of Holyfield, Tyson, Duran and Leonard stare down from the walls in inspiration of what could be. Back home, in Baltimore, Crystal Rahman has stayed away, looking after the couple's three young children and following her husband's exploits on television. But Hasim's brother has been with him throughout the weeks away and there is a happy and relaxed atmosphere around the camp, even if most observers suspect Rahman is in for a beating once the real action begins. But Rahman is trusting in his boxing ability. At 6ft 2in and around 17 stone, he is three inches shorter and some 20lb lighter than the champion, yet he is not daunted by the size of the task. "So what if he's a big heavyweight. I'll match him jab for jab and stay with him. It doesn't matter how hard he hits, I'm in shape. And I just want to hear the words 'Lennox Lewis, former champion'."