KING LANDS SUCKER PUNCH
By Rick Folstad
The
heavyweight division should be a required course at every law school in the
country. Call it ``Contract Quandary 101,'' or, ``Five easy ways to steal a
champion.''
To pass the course you've got to spend the
semester studying the by-laws and fight contracts of the IBF, WBC, WBA and the
morals clause of Don King, which no one has ever seen. If for some inconceivable
reason you begin to believe all the amendments, subsections and hollow promises,
you're required to take the course over again.
Does Hasim Rahman realize what he's done, what kind of
sleeping monster he woke? The poor guy lands a good right hand on the cheek of
Lennox Lewis and suddenly, the heavyweight division is a judicial battlefield,
an ugly land of backstabbing, badmouthing and barristers.
Some of the lead characters in this comedy include
Rahman, King, Lewis, Mike Tyson, David Tua, Cedric Kushner, HBO, Showtime, an
assortment of smiling attorneys, Shelly Finkel, the head honchos at the IBF and
the WBC, the Seven Dwarfs, Goofy, Yosemite Sam and the Three Stooges.
But the starring role now belongs to King, who somehow
stole a champion in the wee hours of a Friday morning, Rahman forgetting the
lessons Mike Tyson has already learned and has been trying to pass on: The only
thing that matters to Don King is making Don King richer. That hard-line
approach to business is fine if you're selling time shares, betting the ponies
or trying to make a fortune in commodities. It doesn't go down well when the
product your peddling has a wife and kids and poor judgment.
King, knowing how the world works, flopped down $500,000
in cash in front of Rahman and suddenly, he had his man and a big portion of the
heavyweight championship.
Now, instead of a fight with Tyson or a rematch with
Lewis, Rahman will probably fight the renowned Brian Nielsen of Denmark, almost
a household name in some parts of Copenhagen.
So after six years with Kushner as his promoter, Rahman
wins the title and bolts, says good-bye like a lazy husband who just won the
lottery and no longer needs the wife who supported him through the tough times.
You can't blame Rahman for following the money, but he
also might have sold himself down the river. He listened to the silver-tongued
devil and somehow believed what he was told, what King promised.
Advice to Rahman: Hire an accountant and an attorney,
Hasim. Check the clauses and the fine print. Count your change and keep a close
eye on your wallet.
Meanwhile, the rest of the heavyweight division is
wondering what happened, how King got past the security guard at the door. Say
this for the guy, he doesn't get caught napping. He could convince you the world
was flat if he thought there was a buck in it for him.
While Kushner was looking to cut a deal for Rahman -
weave his way through the legal jungle that has sprung up since Lewis was
knocked on his fanny - King was hiding in the shadows whispering secrets in
Rahman's ear, telling him the world is flat.
But that's just part of the great adventure. We're still
not 100 percent sure who has a right to promote who or fight whom. If you're not
filing a lawsuit right now, you're not in the heavyweight picture.
All because Lewis didn't take Rahman seriously.
Funny thing about good right hands. They circumvent
lawsuits quicker than a room full of judges.
The whole thing is pretty wild if you think about it. We
don't know what's going to happen next, but that's the great thing about prize
fighting. We never know what's going to happen next.
A good right hand is a beautiful thing.