Talk About Heavyweight Disasters

Are you ready for Rahman-Ruiz?

Incredibly, it will now take a fight between Hasim Rahman and John Ruiz to unify the heavyweight title.

It would be a match between the two baddest men on the planet.

And we’re not talking about bad as in mean, terrifying, ferocious.

We’re talking about bad, as in bad, poor, horrible, inept.

The heavyweight division, already dreadful, got even worse at dawn on Sunday when Rahman shocked the boxing world by knocking out Lennox Lewis in the fifth round of their title match in Carnival City, South Africa.

That thud which reverberated from the tip of the African continent was more than just Lewis hitting the canvas. It was the sound of the division hitting rock bottom.

Unless somehow Butterbean should win the championship.

Actually there may have been one big winner to come out of the stunning victory by Rahman, a 20-1 underdog--Mike Tyson.

Yes, Tyson’s skills have deteriorated and his motivation is fleeting and his resolve is questionable.

But on his worst day, Tyson can beat Rahman and Ruiz.

Maybe on the same day.

Ruiz is the World Boxing Assn. champion because he beat an Evander Holyfield whose body has retired although his mind won’t accept that.

Rahman is the International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Council champion because Lewis didn’t take him seriously.

Not for one minute.

Tyson may have lost out on a potential $100-million fight with Lewis, but what he has gained are new avenues back to the top with a potential Lewis fight still down the road.

Those who see a parallel between Lewis’ loss to Rahman and Tyson’s loss to Buster Douglas in Tokyo in 1990 are right on.

Tyson came to Tokyo, unfocused and out of shape, figuring he could beat Douglas merely with an icy glare.

That’s what Sonny Liston also thought when he took on a cocky kid named Cassius Clay in 1964.

It didn’t work with Clay. And it didn’t work with Douglas.

But Lewis, who didn’t learn from history, was destined to repeat it.

So while Rahman was hard at work in Carnival City, acclimating himself to the thin altitude, 5,200 feet above sea level, Lewis was hard at play in Las Vegas, filming a movie, “Ocean’s Eleven.”

That cost Lewis valuable time he needed to prepare for the fight.

When he finally showed up in South Africa, he was not only behind schedule, but overweight. According to one report, he had ballooned to 269 pounds.

When Lewis finally weighed in, he was at 253, his heaviest weight for a fight by two pounds.

There is a rematch clause and Lewis has made clear his plans to exercise it.

Ruiz is planning to fight a third match against Holyfield.

But whatever happens with those fights, the landscape looks most favorable to Tyson.

He could fight:

* Ruiz, who was flattened by David Tua, the fighter whose body frame most resembles that of Tyson, in only 19 seconds.

* Rahman, who has also lost to Tua and Oleg Maskaev, who couldn’t get out of the second round last month against Lance Whitaker.

* Holyfield, who appears to have succumbed to the ravages of the ring and of age at 38.

* Lewis, who may have lost the psychological edge against Tyson. Lewis still has the physical tools to win this fight. In dominating Tua, the 6-foot-5 Lewis showed that he is capable of neutralizing and frustrating a shorter man. He still figures to do the same against the 5-11 Tyson. But one of the things that was most impressive about Lewis, who had looked better than ever in his recent fights, was a new air of confidence. The upset might have reversed that, draining Lewis’ confidence while instilling new hope in Tyson.

“It really does turn the heavyweight division upside down and that’s a good thing,” said Dan Goossen, promoter for Tyson, Tua and Whitaker. “Outside of Lewis-Tyson, there was really no real heavyweight bout out there. Mike should now be in the position of steering the heavyweight division if promoted properly.”

Said Jay Larkin, head of the Showtime network, for whom Tyson fights: “What it does is, it provides a shortcut to a heavyweight title fight for Mike. But it’s not a foregone conclusion that it will happen. And it’s not a foregone conclusion that he will win.”

It took Tyson a long time to recover after Douglas shattered his facade of superiority.

Might the same thing have happened to Lewis?

Or can he shake off the division-rattling events of Sunday, chalk it up to overconfidence and lack of preparation, work himself back into shape, get his vengeance in a rematch and move on?

Will there even be a Lewis-Rahman II? The boxing world will be waiting and watching.

Particularly Tyson.

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Oscar De La Hoya (33-2, 27 KOs) will challenge WBC 154-pound champion Javier Castillejo (51-4, 34 KOs) of Spain on June 23 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena.

De La Hoya, moving up seven pounds, will be attempting to win a title in a fifth weight division.

The fight had been tentatively scheduled for June 9 but the change was negotiated over the weekend.