How an over-confident Lewis lost to Rahman

When 2001 began, few people in the boxing world could have envisaged that a little fancied heavyweight from Baltimore, Hasim Rahman, would end forever the claims being made that Lennox Lewis should rank alongside Muhammad Ali as one of the greatest fighters in the history of boxing. And anybody sufficiently bold to put forward the suggestion that Rahman could even become world heavyweight champion would have been labelled a prime candidate for the funny farm.

Rahman was supposedly a no-risk money earner for Lewis while the champion waited for the real jackpot night against Mike Tyson. This was a fight believed to be so one-sided that none of the Las Vegas casinos, which habitually throw money at boxing, was prepared to offer a site fee to stage the contest; and so it was that Carnival City, a gaudy gaming venue some 20 miles outside Johannesburg, became the unlikely host last April.

According to the American media, Lewis-Rahman was a no contest, so utterly predictable in its outcome and lacking in news value that only one regular American boxing journalist from the small army of writers which normally covers title fights made the long journey to South Africa.

"I would have expected Lennox Lewis to win that fight seven days a week, 24 hours a day," said the former world heavyweight champion George Foreman, now a senior commentator for the American television network HBO. It was a popular opinion and, most damaging of all to Lewis, one which the champion himself seemed to have taken on board. Only two weeks before he was due in the ring with Rahman Lewis had chosen to play a bit-part role in a Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt movie being shot on location in Las Vegas, close to where Lewis had been going through the motions in his training camp.

"Lewis was over-confident," said Foreman, "and I think it's a reflection on his trainer [Emanuel Steward]. If you bring a guy into training camp and he's not in shape, then don't bring him down to the fight. It was a case of hands down, walking forward, disregarding a man you have seen films of but all you look at is the clip where he was knocked out and you try to replicate that. It happened to me when I fought Ali in '74. I thought I was going to knock him out in two. Instead my hands are down, my head is up and I end up losing."

The Sky television commentator and former world cruiserweight champion Glenn McCrory was among those who had attended a Las Vegas press conference Lewis gave on the day when Naseem Hamed saw his world come tumbling down when he was outboxed by the Mexican Marco Antonio Berrera.

"I could hardly believe what I was hearing. There was Lennox saying that going to fight in Johannesburg, which is 6,000ft above sea level, would be no problem. He was saying that altitude would have no effect on him and that we shouldn't believe what the scientists say. It was as if he really believed that he was different from every other man," said McCrory.

"It seems when fighters win titles they get too big for their own boots. But I always thought Lennox had too much sense and too much class to fall into that trap. Remember, I've been in the ring with Lennox, so I know just how strong he is and how good he can be. But I was looking at him in Las Vegas thinking 'what an idiot'. He thought Rahman was nothing. And, I admit, I thought Lennox would still be able to win if he'd been the director of that film and played all the characters. But complacency can be a problem for any athlete and it certainly was for Lennox. Rahman was up for the fight and Lennox just wasn't there when it came round to the contest."

Distastefully Lewis had said Rahman was "a piece of meat that I will play with" but it was quickly clear in the fight, when Lewis began puffing and blowing as the altitude took its hold, that all was not going to plan.

With the BBC winning the right to televise the fight in Britain, McCrory had the unusual experience of watching a major fight on television and he recalls: "It was weird, like when Lennox lost to Oliver McCall in 1994. I'd been to Alton Park with my kids and was watching in my hotel and I just had an incredible feeling of déjà vu. I just knew it was going to happen again, that Lennox Lewis was going to get knocked out."

The best right-hand punch which Rahman is ever likely to throw ended the fight in the fifth round. A dazed and stunned Lewis was left asking his cornermen "what happened?" He did not know it and could scarcely believe it, that he had lost the title.

Protracted court action eventually won Lewis his re-match and this time the contest had the attention of the world. A pre-fight poll of journalists revealed a 50-50 split over the possible outcome for a fight Lewis said he had to win if he was going to continue boxing. At 36, with so many achievements behind him, it was undeniably true that Lewis was still fighting for his place in history.

McCrory was among those who tipped Rahman to win the fight and send Lewis into retirement saying: "I thought the first fight showed Lennox might have been gone as a fighter. It happens. The body simply cannot do any more what the mind is telling it. In the build-up Rahman had been making all the right noises and I thought Lewis was giving out the wrong signs. He looked intimidated.

"But then on the last two nights suddenly it began to look as though Rahman had lost the plot. He turned up to watch one of his friends fight at a small-hall show I was at. And there he was, jumping into the ring on the eve of a world heavyweight title fight. I thought something's up here. Either he's over-confident or his bottle's gone.

"By trying to frighten Lewis so much he'd wound up frightening himself. On the night he was trying to get in Lewis's dressing room to watch his hands being wrapped. It was ridiculous, complete stupidity. In the ring you might be fighting the biggest bum in the world but you have to get your head together.

"Lennox's strategy was one based on fear, his fear. But it was a great win and a great performance. Whether or not he can do it against Tyson remains to be seen."

Rahman fought like a novice on that November night and was demolished by a looping Lewis right hand in the fourth round. Lewis had slimmed down, trained as he should have done prior to his South African humiliation and had found his night of redemption.

"Here I did what I had to do," said Lewis. "I told everybody that his punch in South Africa was lucky, so now you might believe me. You can forget about Hasim Rahman. He's now Has-Been Rahman, the Buster Douglas of the 21st century."

What happened next . . .

Lennox Lewis's win in the return means a fight with Mike Tyson, a multi-million dollar showdown which has been talked about for the better part of a decade, can now go ahead even if the cynics still say they will believe it when they see it.

A date of April 6 has been pencilled into diaries, although precise contractual details have yet to be agreed, and it is reasonable to expect the fighters will be stepping into the ring for a combined purse of more than $50m (£35m).

The principal potential stumbling block to the contest going ahead has been overcome. For the first time America's two boxing pay-per-view networks HBO and Showtime have agreed to work together on a world heavyweight title fight - an essential arrangement because Lewis has a long-term contract with HBO while Showtime have bailed Tyson out of his debts so often he may be compelled to fight on the network for the rest of his career.

Now Lewis's own Lion Promotions, working in conjunction with the American company Main Events, must work alongside Tyson's American promoters America Presents to reach agreement on the purse split - Tyson's people have already intimated the fight will be off if Lewis sticks to his demand for a 75% purse share - and also to determine where the event should be staged.

It will be a tortuous process but it is Tyson's erratic behaviour which presents the biggest single doubt over whether or not the fight will happen. Any contest of this magnitude prospers on the back of a gruelling schedule of press conferences, photo shoots and television appearances, and Tyson's mistrust of all matters media makes Sir Alex Ferguson look like a baby-kissing, rent-a-quote politician.

Tyson has been pressed into abandoning plans for a warm-up fight against Ray Mercer. The Lewis camp, fearing Mercer might throw a spanner in the works by actually fighting, unlike several agreeable submissive Tyson opponents of recent years, had begun court action to stop the contest.

Who wins? The bookies say Lewis (he is quoted at around 9-4 on by the Las Vegas casinos) but many in the sport say Tyson's big punch will be decisive. Both are past their best but so were Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier when they fought the Thriller in Manila in 1975, an epic and one of the greatest heavyweight fights of all time.