Rumble in Jungle fiasco / Arrest Erap —— today

Lennox Lewis had a dream. The world’s undisputed heavyweight champion deliberately chose South Africa as the venue for his title defense against Hasim Rahman. Nothing like the ebony darkness at dawn overlooking Carnival City casino in sprawling Brakpan in South Africa. This would remind the cauliflower cognoscenti of a fight classic that happened on Oct. 30, 1974. This was the Rumble in the Jungle in Zaïre between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. He, Lennox Lewis, would duplicate Ali’s feat — knock out Foreman in the eighth. And he, too, would soar into legend over the prostrate body of Rahman.

A rumble it was in Zaïre as of two prehistoric monsters in a titanic clash. Ali was at his vintage best and came out of it "the greatest."

And it was indeed his greatest fight until the Thrilla in Manila in 1975 where he chopped Joe Frazier into bleeding morsels of choice abattoir meat. It was those two fights with Foreman and Frazier, more than anything else, that earned Ali the Holy Grail of professional pugilism. Add the Ali personality, a thrilling, dizzying bungee dive everytime he talked — he never stopped talking. Add his wartime sacrifices, his defiance of the Pentagon because he refused to fight the Vietcong, his ruthless dethronement as world champ, his devotion to Allah. He was easily voted the millennium’s greatest athlete.

And so the Jamaican-born Lennox felt he, too, could do an Ali in South Africa. And hoist himself to the status of another black demi-god. Who was this Hasim Rahman, anyway? He was just a pugilistic flapjack for Lennox’s next fight — very probably with Mike Tyson. Here the real money would come in — a colossal $100 million boodle. Here Lennox would prove to the world he was "the greatest" next to Ali. He would dispose of the myth of Tyson, a man-eating beast. But first, fling Rahman out of the way.

It was not to be.

Hasim Rahman, 28, born in Baltimore — where H. L. Mencken banged his typewriter and out came some of the most muscular and greatest essays in journalism — was no pushover. The second round bore testimony. Hard, rippling blows were exchanged. Surprisingly, Rahman never flinched. He gauged his distance the way a cheetah does before pouncing on a fleeing antler. He knew that early in the second his right could get to Lennox’s jaw.

* * *

It came in the fifth. Rahman came within distance. Blows were exchanged, not hard ones, measuring blows, gauging blows, each traveling an inch closer. You sensed something was coming. Rahman cut loose through an opening between Lewis’ upraised arms. It was a bomb all right. It hit Lennox just as his giraffe jaw got into focus. I had always likened Lewis to a giraffe. He was timber tall, paddled on his legs, had alternately fast and loose arms, a dentist’s drill of a job. It was an overhand right, traveling more upward than downward for Lennox was tall. "He got through with a great right hand," Lewis later said. "I went down. I didn’t beat the count."

He couldn’t. He was flat on his back, gloved arms struggling upward in slow-motion, like the arms of a drowning man clutching at air above the water’s surface. Then the arms went down to join a body struggling vainly to beat the count of ten. More seconds passed before Lennox could get out of the heavy fog that claimed his body. The fight proved that Lewis Lennox had a crystal chin. And that if he ever got into the same ring with Mike Tyson, Iron Mike would detach Lennox’s jaw and send it flying to third row, ringside.

No, I wasn’t surprised at all. I had always held — after a close view of Lennox’s two fights with Evander Holyfield and a few other fights — that he was a journeyman, a mediocre heavyweight, who could ham it out better than he could fight. He was never savage, never a brute in a profession that demands a killer’s instincts. And appetites. Lennox reached the top because not in a long, long time had the heavyweight division plunged into a prolonged drought. The Alis were gone, the Fraziers, the Foremans, the Listons, even the Pattersons.

One thing is sure. The Mike Tyson fight is off. I wanted that fight more than anything else. Lewis Lennox’s style, his height, his ambling walk, his tall hulk, his not-so-devastating rights, his inability to deliver fiery combinations, were just right for Tyson. Iron Mike liked them tall. Iron Mike liked them moving around like a cruising truck. Iron Mike just loved jaws emerging like rhododendron from a bush. He would have destroyed the likes of Lennox Lewis and how.

* * *

It will take the world sometime to get used to Hasim Rahman. We don’t really know how good he is. We do know he has a sledgehammer for a right. But we don’t know if he has artistry, if he can dance and swoop at the same time, growl like an enraged gorilla growls, then barge in for the kill. Or fly off like the elegant backward swirl of a matador’s cape, then come back with a sword concealed inside. We are still not very sure that Rahman’s overhand right in the fifth was not a lucky punch. Or if he can take a punch. One thing we know. It’s too early to pit him against Mike Tyson. He has to get a reputation first.

Whatever. The heavyweight division was one big snore. Lewis Lennox was an over-tall, over-publicized, over-glamorized palooka. So when Hasim Rahman, he from the belt-lands of Baltimore knocked out Lennox in the fifth, he brought us back to writing sports in this space. Long time we haven’t. Next, I suppose, we’ll have to write again about Michael Jordan. Would he ever get out of retirement again? 99 to 1, he wouldn’t. And he said that often. Now he is down to 88 to 85 percent against returning. Next, he might say it’s 50-50. Gosh, it crawls on your skin.

His Airness will be back in the air? Or is he taking us for a ride? If Jordan comes back, the legend collapses. And the world weeps.

* * *

The tidal force was People Power. It came like the surging of a great biblical flood because Joseph Ejercito Estrada had lost his right and authority to govern. And so it was a historic force. And the incumbent president fled Malacañang because his only other choice was to remain and die at the hands an outraged people. His two-and-a-half-year presidency was a shameless mardi gras of  scandals, immorality, gambling, thievery. So, okay.

Under the goad of People Power, the Supreme Court did its job and swore Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to the presidency. That stopped the siege on Malacañang. Nevertheless, Estrada stalled. Twice, by a vote of 13-0, the Court stripped every claim of Estrada to immunity. Twice, it tore to shreds the sham he was just on vacation. Twice, the Court constitutionally spun him to limbo as it would rotten, pretentious and bogus legal coin. Under the same goad of People Power, the Office of the Ombudsman did its job. Aniano Disierto knew he had to. He was borne by a wave.

And so the Office of the Ombudsman filed the proper plunder and other charges against Estrada.

The whole thing is now at the Sandiganbayan, Third division, dominion of Justice Anacleto Badoy Jr. Until this time of writing, the Sandiganbayan has yet to arrest Estrada. Why? The reasons reportedly have to do with the heavy, lumbering legs of bureaucracy. We are told, however, that Justice Badoy is a man of remarkable gun metal who can stand alone on a cliff. Good. If he is such a man, he will issue the warrant for Estrada’s arrest today for he has had enough time to assess the plunder charges.

* * *

Justice Badoy cannot tarry long. Estrada’s lawyers and he himself are into their own game of Russian roulette. Except that there are no bullets inside the gun. Delay, delay, delay. They will look at what they will decry as a misplaced comma in the plunder charges, or a misplaced period, or a misplaced semicolon, and appeal the same to the Supreme Court. Okay, they want to play that game? Fine. But let’s arrest Estrada first. He cannot say one thing today, and another thing tomorrow. Just days ago, he and his lawyer Raymond Fortun announced he was ready to be arrested, that he would not resist at all, that he was prepared, he didn’t want any trouble, and counseled his supporters to accept the inevitable. He would be arrested, yes, but he would fight the plunder charges tooth and nail once the trial started. Now, we would hear him, the world would hear him clear his name from all those baseless charges initiated by the rich and mighty of Makati.

A day after, Estrada changed his tune. He was not turning himself in. He would resist arrest. He was giving signals to his supporters that he was staying put, that they should gather legions to block and repel the arresting party. Under no circumstances should Justice Badoy allow this. The arrest warrant for Estrada should be issued forthwith — today. And not a day later. Sed lex dura lex.

And get those seedy mercenaries out of the streets.