Lennox Lewis regained his heavyweight title emphatically Saturday night, knocking Hasim Rahman flat on his back with a looping left hook and a roundhouse right to the jaw, then watching as Rahman struggled to regain his feet but collapse into the rope strands.
Referee Joe Cortez stopped the bout at 1 minute 29 seconds of the fourth round. Lewis had seized the upper hand from the opening bell, scoring with other left-right combinations before the flash finish.
“In South Africa I didn’t take him seriously enough,” said Lewis, celebrating his revenge for Rahman’s upset victory overseas seven months ago. “I gave him a lot of movement. He couldn’t take the movement. I got him in the fourth, and I got my one-up on him.”
Lewis, now a three-time champion, silenced those who have criticized his often successful, often cautious style. With his closing shots at the upstart Rahman, who had knocked him out in the fifth round April 22, Lewis threw caution to the wind.
“I definitely wasn’t gun-shy,” he said.
“He showed a lot of disrespect to me, but I kept it all inside.”
In the opening round, Lewis worked to establish his left jab and follow up with the right, while Rahman tried to come inside low. Rahman landed a solid left, but Lewis’ jab brought a welt over the champion’s left eye.
Lewis continued scoring with jabs in the second. He nailed Rahman with a looping left but missed a wild roundhouse at the bell.
In the third, to chants of “Lewis! Lewis!”, he scored with a left, right and left-right combination, while Rahman continued to stalk without landing.
When Rahman tried to step up his aggression midway through the fourth, Lewis closed the show.
“He hit me with a good shot,” Rahman said. “But I’m not a quitter.”
To a raucous crowd at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, Lewis entered the ring first, decked out in white. Rahman followed, bedecked in a red, white and blue, stars and stripes robe and ‘do-rag. Lewis stripped quickly to his trunks, while Rahman paced the ring in his robe with his cornermen holding aloft the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation title belts he won from Lewis in April.
Lewis came to the center of the ring and stood with Cortez, waiting while Rahman shed his outerwear before coming forward for Cortez’s instructions to both fighters.
Despite Rahman’s upset knockout of Lewis to win the title in April, Lewis came into the ring as a 5-2 favorite. His guaranteed share of the purse was $11 million, while Rahman’s was $5 million.
