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Hasim Rahman is in the middle of a heavyweight division that can either improve a lot or disprove a little. The past glamour, brilliant fighting skills and celebrity status that Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis offered to the division haunts the once powerful weight class. We have invited a ghost of sorts for the current crop of heavyweights to follow and with this list: names such as Vitali Klitschko (WBC), John Ruiz (WBA), Chris Byrd (IBF), Lamon Brewster (WBO) are the definition of champions in this division. Rahman is carefree and confident when he speaks of any of the current champions. He would like to fight them all and if he had it his way, he would do it in the manner in which I listed the champions. Rahman’s career is not complex, but from another perspective, it is not practical either. He has a commanding boxing style, functional footwork and calculable power. At times, he can induce people into thinking he is not serious about boxing, but in contrast, that is a clever tactic to fool his opponent into believing the peoples hype.
In 2001, Lennox Lewis had the pleasure of sleeping on Rahman, and it was Lewis who ended up sleeping. Rahman’s championship reign was brisk; nevertheless, he was a champion. At least he did inspire Lewis to take his championship responsibilities to heart. Grant Rahman some room for improvement, because he fell into the land of recognition and fame, losing focus on Lewis and he proved this by going down in similar fashion as Lewis in their rematch in 2001. There was no case to study here, Rahman surely had the self-esteem to beat Lewis, but he lost the connection of actually being cautious and aware to Lewis’s hunger.
Yet, you have to pardon Rahman’s actions, as his heart and ambitious path is clearly a call back to the seventies era heavyweights. You may be beaten, and on worse nights, even knocked down a couple of times, but you still improve for the better, and with success, you will be a champion once again. Rahman has to be following that sort of advice, because of the five losses he holds on his record, three may have gone Rahman’s way. The David Tua rematch, Evander Holyfield and the John Ruiz fights. In the Ruiz, we did not see a focused Rahman, but we did see enough to see that if his potential could marry his motivation, we would have a boxer with a chance of adding some star power back to the heavyweight division.
It could have been Rahman’s frustration, or his reviewing of the Ruiz fight on tape, but he found a niche in his style and he went back to the drawing board. Rahman took the opposite route and defeated being stubborn. He decided to fight journeymen, Alfred Cole, Mario Cawley and Rob Calloway, in less than glamorous venues, but in venues that support the growth of boxing. It wasn’t in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, it was in Maryland and Delaware. The places that gave Rahman his start and confidence to begin with.
From training issues, promoter conflicts, Klitschko belt teasing antics, and having to deal with positioning himself for making all three belts one major championship, the pressure is on. Monte Barrett is not in the business of being an easy target for Rahman. He has similar intentions as Rahman: to become a world champion. Barrett is in that box of not taking boxing seriously at one point in his career, and he is at the maturity of his career where progression is the only option.
I don’t want to sound like I am castigating the heavyweight division; I just don’t like the politics in the division. Out of the large pool of heavyweights, each one has their own distinctive style and winnable ways. As fans, writers and boxers, we all adore and cherish the art of boxing. With that being a positive assertion, we should also add in some more inspiration and follow Rahman’s lead by not giving up on a division, but waiting patiently for another reign of good heavyweight boxing. Or, in Rahman’s case, not giving up on earning another title shot, no matter how complex it may be. I wrote earlier that Rahman’s career was not complex or practical, it is determined.
Contact Shaun Rico LaWhorn at filmmaking_mentality@msn.com
