A late-blooming heavyweight champion who survived five bullets before his professional boxing career began
In short: Hasim Rahman did not start boxing until age 20, yet he rose to become a two-time world heavyweight champion. His path to the top was marked by extreme volatility, including a miraculous upset of Lennox Lewis, multiple title-fight postponements, and a life story defined by surviving near-fatal violence in his youth.
Born in Baltimore in 1972, Hasim Rahman’s early life was far from the conventional path of a professional athlete. As a teenager, he worked as an enforcer for drug dealers and survived a shooting where five bullets entered his body, as well as a severe car accident that left him with permanent scarring. He did not begin boxing until age 20, and with only 10 amateur bouts to his name, he turned professional in 1994 at age 22. To compensate for his lack of experience, he maintained a frantic schedule, sometimes fighting within five days of a previous bout.
Rahman’s career reached its zenith in 2001 when he scored a stunning 5th-round knockout victory over Lennox Lewis in South Africa. As a 20-to-1 underdog, the win made him the unified WBC, IBF, and IBO champion. However, his reign was short-lived; Lewis invoked an immediate-rematch clause, and in their November 2001 encounter, Lewis knocked Rahman out in the fourth round. Rahman later secured a second reign as WBC champion in 2005 after Vitali Klitschko retired due to injury, but he lost that title in 2006 to Oleg Maskaev.
The latter half of Rahman’s career was defined by persistent attempts to regain relevance in the heavyweight division. He faced various setbacks, including a 2008 loss to Wladimir Klitschko and a 2012 defeat to Alexander Povetkin. Despite his age, he continued to compete, returning to the ring in 2026 at age 53 to face Phillip Triantafillo. Throughout his career, Rahman remained a polarizing figure, often criticized for his conditioning, yet he maintained a notable record, including 50 professional wins, and passed his fighting spirit to his son, Hasim Rahman Jr.
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