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Manhattan Transfer 4

The Great Eight Weight. At the weigh-in, left to right, they scaled: Holyfield 215 pounds, Rahman 232, Byrd 214 pounds, Ruiz 239. DON 278. Right half: Golota 238 pounds, McCline 270, Meehan 237 pounds, Donald 226. Don King jumped on the scale at 278 pounds to try to push it to a ton. They annnounced the grand total 2130 pounds. . announced it was "over a ton." When the reporter was a child we memorised: "2240 pounds make one ton." Hope the judges of the New York State Athletic Commission have better arithmetic than this . . when they tally Kali's 12 rounds against Hasim the Rock.

New York City, NY -

"My friend Kali Meehan is a great chance to win this fight .." Robbie Peden in New York forecasts the Battle for Supremacy, Meehan vs Hasim Rock Rahman, Saturday night (Sunday afternoon EST) at Madison Square Garden.

"Kali will test his heart," said Robbie Peden, leaning forward on his stool in the Pennsylvania Hotel opposite the Garden.
"Kali has to believe in himself. Open up all guns, don't hold back. Rahman looks he's in shape, but Meehan can make him weaken."

Peden will soon win the world junior-lightweight title. Before he came to live in America.

Peden will soon be junior-lightweight world champ. Before he came to live in the USA, Robbie says, he'd recognised Meehan for "world potential" - when Kali seemed just a club fighter.

Some time after Peden joined Roger Bloodworth, he advised Kali to move to the States too. The family man held back . . several years. A year ago Uncle Ted Allen and Magic Mark Janssen laid down rails and Meehan shifted towards the present Rendezvous with Destiny.

So can Kali Meehan do it? Robbie Peden rates Rahman on a par with Lamon Brewster, "the man Kali beat but lost the decision." Lamon showed more courage, Rahman perhaps more punch.

Kali Meehan must push on, round by round . . and when he is tired, know and believe that the Rock feels tireder.
"This is the Heavyweight Championship of the World he is moving toward," said Peden, "I can't win that [nor could Rock Fist Duran or the Sugar Rays]. But Kali has the chance to go on to the greatest prize in all sport."

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THE Meehan-Rahman match comes on second after Evander Holyfield fights Larry Donald.

When you think of antiquated Ali beaten up by Spinks, Holmes and Berbick . . hastened toward the Parkinsons Syndrome that might or might not have lurked in his genetic destiny . . you tremble for Evander Holyfield, 42.
Sure, Archie Moore was great at the age, able to deck Marciano and dispute Marciano's vacated title with Floydd Patterson.
But Evander took such a shelling from Toney, last outing, that he seemed at the stage of the "Archie Moore/must fall in four" to Cassius Clay.

The reporter sat at round table with Evander and enjoyed his articulate answers to others' questions. Evander would make a good sports commentator (as would Lamon Brewster above all). Say a prayer for the only four-time heavyweight champion. Larry the Legend Donald, they call his oppoinent. Could be Legend Smasher.

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THIRD on is the little man of the field, Chris Byrd, defending his IBF
heavyweight title. Little Byrd - 214 lb, 15st.4, a stone bigger than Joe Louis, 1 1/2 stone more than Marciano! - what gigantism has overtaken our game!

Chris Byrd has the brightest eye and sparkling teeth . . Colgate should sign him a commercial.

Byrd defends his IBF heavyweight belt with darting southpaw mobility against the whopper Jameel McCline, 270 pounds of sourdough. The whipper-snappers writing today never notice that McCline is heavier (and taller at 6 ft 6 in) than yesterday's mastadons, Primo Carnera and Jess Willard.

Byrd and McCline are friends, their wives are best-friends. But Jameel snarled, at the press conference, that he wants no more of this "f---ing friendship talk." He means to take what Byrd has got.

On the strength of nimble Chris's 12-round draw with "the powerful Pole" Golota last start, I pick the little mano win.

Byrd was, by the by, the most complete barbell-shaped body, pecs and traps, on the weigh-in stage. Of the eight maybe Holyfield had the next definition - remember how cruiserweight Evander suddenly jumped two stone after a course on the "iron pills" (Randolph Turpin's term for barbells). Or whatever.

Even Kali Meehan, the most natural build in the lineup, has been using weight training recently.

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ANDREW (Ondrej) Golota looks like Kostya . . or Frank the Tank . . magnified fifty per cent. Every limb in proportion. As this reporter said into Scoop Malinowski's tape recorder, one of a dozen persons the FIST identity taped:
If Golota punches as exactly as we have seen him shadow-box today, every shot in tight arcs, Golota won't get hit and he'll take John Ruiz's WBA heavyweight title.

More to habit, the "Powerful Pole" is likely to swing, swear and foul his way into trouble.

King made this the final match because it could provide the most biff-take to a million p.p.viewers. And to us lucky 15,000 in "the World's Most Famous Arena."

- A considered summing up when I get home to Melbourne -