Hasim Rahman Jr. has been written off by several fight pundits and even MMA’s biggest promoter, UFC president Dana White.
Rahman Jr., the son of former heavyweight boxing champ Hasim Rahman, looks forward to proving them all wrong.
“I like to see the look on people’s faces afterward,” Rahman Jr. said on The MMA Hour. Dana White is not the only one. There’s a few people I can’t wait to see their face when I punish this kid, because they know better.
“Tim Bradley, Eddie Hearn, Dana White … they’re going to be like, ‘I knew it.’ But that’s not you said. Stand on what you said.”
White made it sound like he would choose Kenzie Morrison (the son of former heavyweight boxing champion Tommy Morrison) over Rahman Jr. to be Jake Paul’s next opponent.
When asked about the Paul vs. Rahman Jr. matchup this past Saturday, White pointed to Morrison’s knockout win over Rahman Jr. when they fought in April.
“He just got knocked out,” White scoffed. White scoffed. This is not my business. It’s a completely different industry. I am in the hard fight .”
Rahman Jr. is a betting underdog in the fight and has been written off as another diminished opponent on which to build Paul’s record. Shaun Porter told FightHub.tv he wanted Rahman Jr. to win but indicated the fighter’s weight restrictions and training regiment, combined with a lack of time to prepare, stacked the deck in Paul’s favor.
Rahman Jr. understands his position when it comes to public perception about the fight.
“My last fight, I admittedly took my opponent lightly,” he said. I didn’t believe Kenzie was as talented as he was. We would have had an entirely different outcome .”
if we hadn’t.
Now, it’s on Rahman Jr. to show he’s not a walkover.
” I believe the effort that I have put in as well as the hard work I am putting into this job is sufficient to complete the task,” he stated. “I don’t think he can match me skill for skill. He only hopes that I will get tired, and then I become fatigued in some other way. Then he can land a huge punch. He won’t be able to stand, I think. I will put my paws on Jake. I doubt Jake has ever been through this much pain.
” It’s like the catapult I need to reach a title .”
Rahman Jr. believes the restrictions put on him mean that Paul and his team are scared of what he might do with no cap on his weight. He accused the social media star turned boxer’s coach of pulling a fast one on him to get the fight and revealed a strict penalty for weight overages that could leave him making just $5,000 to show up for the fight.
Once a $100-a-round sparring partner of Paul, Rahman Jr. said his team is preparing him for his moment to deliver a huge upset.
“It’s going to be a massacre on Aug. 6, and I can’t wait,” he said.
