Hasim

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - These are heady times for Baltimore fighter Hasim "The Rock" Rahman. Three weeks ago, he was so unknown that the South African media waiting for him at Johannesburg International Airport mistook an African-American priest stepping through the arrival gates for the young boxer. When they finally identified Rahman, 28, they couldn't pronounce his name either. And why bother learning? If the oddsmakers were right, Rahman (pronounced ROCK-man) would be a name you could forget once he stepped into the ring with world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis.

Hasim Rahman left Pechanga Casino in Temecula, Calif., on Wednesday night believing he suffered a "ridiculous" loss to fellow heavyweight James Toney. "It's bogus," Rahman, a Baltimore native, said. Rahman, 35, said before the fight that if he lost, he would retire. But after the bout, the two-time world heavyweight champion said he would fight again. Toney was declared the winner before the start of the fourth round. After the third round ended, Dr. Paul Wallace examined a cut above Rahman's left eye and said the fight should be stopped, according to Marshall Kauffman, Rahman's trainer.

Hasim Sharif Rahman, who shocked the sports world last weekend by winning the heavyweight boxing crown, once was a tough kid in a tough neighborhood whom police dismissed as a street thug. But Rahman heeded a warning from a judge who offered probation over prison. The young man left the city for a training camp at a Catskills resort in upstate New York and devoted himself to his boxing career. Now, after his fifth-round knockout of Lennox Lewis in South Africa on Saturday night (Eastern time)

Anyone who thinks Brett Favre is indecisive and functionally foolish about retirement should have a talk with a boxer. Any boxer. Even after the alarm clock on his career starts buzzing, he's likely to either ignore it or hit snooze a few times and sleepwalk his way through fights. "I feel like I can do things now that I've never done before," former heavyweight champ and Baltimore native Hasim Rahman told me the other day. "I'm stronger, I'm wiser. I'm taking it to levels that I've never taken it before.

Former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman sat on a makeshift stage made to look like a red-and-gold boxing ring at a Baltimore County mall yesterday and took on all comers. Rahman's first visit to the area since losing his title two weeks ago brought a stream of autograph-seekers and well-wishers hoping to get a piece of "The Rock" at Security Square Mall. Kids wanted to meet a celebrity. Adults wanted autographed memorabilia to pad sports collections. As for Rahman, he wanted to deliver a message to students just as city and county schools are set to open this week.

An employee of former world heavyweight boxing champion Hasim S. Rahman and a woman were found shot to death early yesterday in the city's Park Heights area, in a car owned by the fighter, police said. The victims, Oliver L. McCaffity Jr. and Lisa Renee Brown, both 28, were shot in the head and found about 2 a.m. in Rahman's wrecked 1999 Infiniti Q45 in an alley behind the 4500 block of Finney Ave., where police were investigating an accident report. The bodies were sitting in the front seat of the car. At a news conference yesterday, Rahman expressed grief over the death of the employee, whom he called "a good associate," and said people need to focus on the killings, not his fame.

Should Hasim Rahman retire from boxing after his loss to Oleg Maskaev? Rahman's better days are past him. He has looked shaky the last few years. Please stay in Las Vegas and become a boxing analyst for ESPN. Harry Repas Baltimore At 33, if Hasim can brush his teeth without wobbling and is able to see punches coming at him (he'll still have the best seat in the house for that), he'll be viewed as a steppingstone veteran by managers moving young heavyweights. If he still wants to fight, God bless and good luck.

Baltimore's Hasim Rahman continued to bask in the warm glow of the national spotlight last night, appearing on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno," but it was obvious that Rahman was more at ease talking about his hometown. Rahman, the new world heavyweight champion, gave Mayor Martin O'Malley and the ESPN Zone plugs, and there was also was time to talk about the infamous wreck Wednesday on Lombard Street during the downtown victory celebration. Rahman and Leno joked that the fighter was more shaken up when he was knocked out of the red convertible he was riding in than at any time during the fight with Lennox Lewis that brought him the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation titles.

The deep scar that marks his right cheekbone is a constant reminder to Hasim Rahman of his accident five years ago."I was a passenger in a truck. The driver was drunk and speeding and ran a stop sign," the unbeaten Baltimore heavyweight recalled. "The truck flipped and the driver was killed. I fell out the door, but my face got pinned under the gas tank. I waited 20 minutes before an ambulance showed up, and my face was a real mess."I figure if I survived all that, how is somebody going to hurt me in a fight?

Heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman of Baltimore will be the subject of an hourlong ESPN documentary about his rise to glory and the countdown to his rematch with Lennox Lewis on Nov. 17 in Las Vegas. The project, which will be shown during the hour before the HBO pay-per-view event starts, is part of a new series on the network called ESPN's Original Entertainment. Filming began in mid-September in New York's Catskill Mountains, where Rahman began training for the bout. There are visits to the Randallstown neighborhoods where Rahman grew up, along with those through the streets of Baltimore, including to the Mack Lewis gym where Rahman got his start.

Former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman sat on a makeshift stage made to look like a red-and-gold boxing ring at a Baltimore County mall yesterday and took on all comers. Rahman's first visit to the area since losing his title two weeks ago brought a stream of autograph-seekers and well-wishers hoping to get a piece of "The Rock" at Security Square Mall. Kids wanted to meet a celebrity. Adults wanted autographed memorabilia to pad sports collections. As for Rahman, he wanted to deliver a message to students just as city and county schools are set to open this week.

Baltimore native Hasim Rahman will not retire after losing his World Boxing Council heavyweight title to Oleg Maskaev on Saturday and instead will "take the rest of the year off" before taking a fight as early as "late February or the beginning of March," promoter Bob Arum said. Neither Rahman, who will turn 34 in November, nor his brother and co-manager, Yah Yah Cason, could be reached to comment. But Arum said he and Cason came up with a plan during an hour-long meeting on Monday. Co-manager Steve Nelson confirmed the meeting.

Should Hasim Rahman retire from boxing after his loss to Oleg Maskaev? Rahman's better days are past him. He has looked shaky the last few years. Please stay in Las Vegas and become a boxing analyst for ESPN. Harry Repas Baltimore At 33, if Hasim can brush his teeth without wobbling and is able to see punches coming at him (he'll still have the best seat in the house for that), he'll be viewed as a steppingstone veteran by managers moving young heavyweights. If he still wants to fight, God bless and good luck.

LAS VEGAS -- Baltimore native Hasim Rahman held an ice pack against the two, large lumps running just above his eyes and along his forehead while sitting in his dressing room late Saturday night. "I can't believe the title is leaving Las Vegas. I can't believe I let that guy walk out of here with my title," Rahman had said in the ring moments earlier after having been dethroned as World Boxing Council heavyweight champion by Kazakhstan-born Oleg Maskaev on a 12th-round knockout at the Thomas & Mack Center.

LAS VEGAS -- For five years we've been waiting for the real Hasim Rahman to stand up. Instead, last night, we saw him fall down. There's been a duality to Rahman's career as a prize fighter. Was he really the fighter who crashed through the ropes and landed on Jim Lampley's lap seven years ago? Or was he the one who threw the amazing punch that knocked out Lennox Lewis? Last night, we learned in spectacular fashion. To many, Rahman was just three minutes away from a future without limits.

LAS VEGAS -- Baltimore native Hasim Rahman didn't land in the lap of HBO's Jim Lampley as a result of Oleg Maskaev's right hand this time, but he nearly fell into a row of ringside cameramen. Rahman rose to his feet after Maskaev dropped him midway through the 12th round with a left hook, followed by a right, but he couldn't recover from a barrage of punches in his own corner as referee Jay Nady waved an end to the fight - and Rahman's reign as World Boxing Council champion - as the Kazakhstan-born Staten Island resident stopped him at 2:17 of the final round.

LAS VEGAS -- The handlers of Oleg Maskaev clearly took offense at the silly promotional line that appears on fight posters, Web sites and television commercials - "America's Last Line of Defense." The idea behind the slogan is simple: Hasim Rahman is the only thing standing in the way of foreigners owning all four major heavyweight belts, an idea that would've seemed blasphemous not long ago. Maskaev's people walked around the Wynn Hotel and Casino wearing T-shirts that show their Kazakhstan-born fighter standing in front of an American flag.