Hasim Rahman is so under rated.

Rahman Arreola, lets make it happen!

 

Champion of the world. Undisputed as much as you can get nowadays, even if for a short period. A lot of great boxers never get that.

Is he an all-time great? No. But consider who is not called an all-time great on this site by idiot posters, that designation doesn't really mean much.

 

That's bad news for Roy Jones Jnr., Jersey Joe Walcott, Sumbu Kalambay, Thomas Hearns and Ezzard Charles. Clearly, they weren't all-time greats.

 

Not in the heart of their careers, when they held the HW title. And certainly not twice in the early rounds. Lewis is the only top level HW champ to have that happen to him.

 

Rahman was a consistent top 10 heavyweight for about a decade or so. This is always impressive. His win over a top 10 all-time heavy in Lewis (my opinion, anyway) definitely rates as impressive. Most of his losses were fairly close ones against other top ten fighters. His draws against Toney and Tua could have arguably been in his favor. He had decent boxing skills and good power.

I like him, and on my rather ridiculous top 100 heavies of all time list, he defintely sneaks in there, mostly due to his having been linear champ, albeit briefly. Probably in the 60's or so, based on his total resume.

Having said that, objectively, there is some disappointment, as well. He only has two wins over heavies that were in the Ring top 10 at the time (Lewis and Barrett) and two draws (Tua and Toney). Sanders was borderline top 10, admittedly, so we could count him, as it was a very solid win. Then again, it took until 2003 before people really started to notice Corrie Sanders as a serious force, and by then he was close to done.

The rest of his forays against top 10 opponents were losses (Tua I, Maskaev I, Lewis II, Holyfield, Ruiz, Klitschko). Maskaev only catapulted into the rankings AFTER beating Rahman the second time. In fact, that just makes it look worse.

Beating Obed Sullivan in 1997 when they were both basically prospects was decent, and he did beat all the usual journeymen required for up-and-comers (Ross Purrity, Jesse Ferguson, Jeff Wooden, Marion Wilson), and that's cool. But... after the five or six solid, resume-enhancing wins/draws, all the rest of his best wins were only over journeymen and fringe contenders.

The Klitschko loss and the second Toney fight could possibly be excused due to age and rust, and Maskaev could just be that case of one generally-lesser guy having someone else's number. And of course, bad luck played a role with the first Tua loss. At this point, though, excuses are mounting. Eventually it has to be said that Hasim Rahman was a reasonably talented heavyweight who didn't usually put it all together, but managed to grab the highest prize in the land on one really good night.

I think it's fair to say that if we don't allow him the excuses for his losses, then we shouldn't make excuses for the fact the Hasim Rahman DID indeed win the linear heavyweight crown against an all-time-great heavyweight champ. Both points are fair, and to me, basically define Hasim Rahman as a fighter. Overall, good, not great, except for one night when it really counted.

 

I believe it was 12 days and he also turned up weighing something like 270 pounds, which shows how little proper training Lewis had done.

 

Love that line! Couldn't agree more.

 

I always liked Rahman as a fighter. Powerful punch, good jab.

 

He's a bum, luckily to punch sometimes.

OVERALL

He is bum.

 

Rahman's nickname should be the "Excuse-tionator"

Everytime Rahman's name is brought up out come the excuses from the Lewis contingent. Lewis got caught with a good punch and its not like it was the only time that he did.

Excuses are so pathetic. Give Rahman his due. He was the better man that night.

 

then how come Vitali gets so much credit for getting getting beaten and TKOd by an even more distracted, under-prepared, fat, old Lewis :think

 

he was alright, nd yes he smashed lewis. but he then lost the rematch. plus his two losses vs maskaev weigh against him.

 

Yeah he is.

 

Poor preparation aside, Lewis was comfortably beating Rahman, he even rocked him twice at the start of round 6, the second time Hasim was badly hurt, but hugged on for his dear life. Then Lennox got careless & taunted Rahman with his guard down & chin exposed, so he was able to land a lucky bomb.

Tua is very easy to out-box, with even moderate boxing skills.

 

Rahman actually landed some decent body shots in the 2nd fight and he was in great shape but obviously the better man won that fight. Yes Lewis SHOULD have won the 1st fight but Rock did a great job through that whole entire fight no matter what you say.

Look how composed & collected he was in there. I think that is why he is so badly misunderstood by fight fans, a different Rock shows up everytime. I really like his boxing style, it's ashame his conditioning was poor Vs. Wladimir but that would not have helped him win that fight obviously unless he somehow landed something. We all know landing on Wladimir is almost non existant these days.

Before Monte Barrett knocked Tua down, that impressive body shot he threw at the end of their 2nd fight was quite a nice punch. Too bad it was not counted as a knockdown, I think most agree it was in fact a knock down from a tired Tuaman.