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Australia's heavyweight hope, Kali Meehan was beaten in four rounds last night in Madison Square Garden before a crowd of 17,777 and a world home audience.

Meehan gamely absorbed a battering from former world heavyweight champion, Hasim (Rock) Rahman.

Meehan's trainer, Mark Janssen waved the bout off after the fourth gong, while Kali was still on his feet.

Only now am I free to reveal what Team Meehan told me in confidence on arrival in New York a week ago.

Meehan was facing an almost impossible task when he entered the ring.

Plagued by a neck injury even before he flew to New York the second time from Sydney, Kali missed 60 rounds of sparring.
X-rays revealed a pinched nerve in left rear of the neck.
Don King Productions medical team treated Kali with therapies including acupuncture, eased the pain but did not mend the condition.

He was sadly short of ring fitness with only running under his belt.

In the last days, manager Ted Allen and trainer Mark Janssen considered pulling Meehan out of King's heavyweight championship elimination tournament, but Meehan chose to take his chances.

Dropping out of the line-up of eight world heavyweights painted on a banner over the Garden in King's "Rendezvous with Destiny: Battle for Supremacy" would have wiped him off the map as a heavyweight contender.

The odds were a longshot or a likely beating to nothing at all, and Meehan risked the beating.

Rahman was in the best condition since he put the 10 count on universal champion Lennox Lewis in 2001.

The dark destroyer from Baltimore, Maryland, hit Meehan with big punches from the start and took some solid shots to head and body himself. But Kali was sucking air in round two and began to hang on to survive thundering punches.

Janssen bit the top off a water bottle and poured it on the sore neck at
interval to little effect.

No-one protested at the sight of Meehan lurching back to his corner at the end of four rounds and Janssen graphically waving the bout off.

Director of DKP boxing operations, Bobby Goodman led this reporter from press row towards the dressing room, ahead of the losing squad who were being grilled in the ring. Said Goodman: "Kali showed a lot of courage staying upright. He could have pulled out in the last week but chose not to.

"We shall have other chances for him in the future."

The night was a jarring debut at bigtime boxing for Australian pop singer, Shannon Noll, who went fourth man in Kali's corner, along with Tony Schwalger, Meehan's original coach.

Mark Janssen said: "We couldn't let Kali take more shots from the hardest puncher in the heavyweight division.I wasn't going to let him go out again and be finished off."

Rahman knocked then-universal heavyweight champion, Lennox Lewis cold in 2001.

This Garden win takes him to No 1 contender for both WBC and WBA heavyweight titles.

Angry over Andrej

Seventh Avenue was a roar of angry Poles as we left the Garden at half an hour after midnight. The last heavyweight fight had been awarded to John Ruiz over Andrej Golota, two judges to one, in a 12-round defence of Ruiz's WBA title.

This reporter had Golota three points up in a roughhouse encounter in which Ruiz was close to finished by two knockdowns in round two.
The celebrated author of the definitive biography on Muhammad Ali, said he scored it even. Famed fight caller, Colonel Bob Sheridan, told me he had Golota by a point, but an unusual four rounds even.

Another split decision some heckled was that given to Chris Byrd defending his IBF heavyweight title against the giant, Jameel McCline . Little Byrd's win was well earned in this reporter's book: Big Mac ran out of steam in the second half against the doughty little southpaw.

Evander Holyfield took a pasting over 12 rounds from the agile Larry Donald, in a bout that put an end to Evander's dream of taking his Ali-outsoaring feat of four-time heavyweight champion to fabulous five times.