Holyfield Wins Technical Decision

The old man still has some fight left in him.

Evander Holyfield, showing glimpses of the warrior he was in his prime, pounded Hasim Rahman for most of eight rounds Saturday night at Atlantic City, N.J., before winning a technical decision after a head butt caused a large swelling on Rahman’s head.

“Don’t tell me what God can’t do,” said Holyfield, a four-time heavyweight champion. “Don’t tell me he can’t revive a 39-year-old.”

The head butt in the seventh round followed one in the fourth. The swelling kept getting bigger until it had grown grotesquely to nearly the size of a baseball on the top left side of Rahman’s forehead.

After the fight was halted in the middle of the eighth round, ring doctor Dominic Coletta consulted with the referee and stopped the bout, leaving it up to the judges.

Two judges had Holyfield leading, 69-64, and the third had Rahman ahead, 67-66.

“We did hit heads there, but I’m hitting him with shots anyway and I hit him right on it,” Holyfield (38-5-2) said.

Rahman, 29, a former heavyweight champion, was dazed and confused for several minutes after the fight, while he got medical attention on his stool.

“He was head-butting me from Round 1 and I told the referee,” Rahman (35-4) said. “I don’t feel Evander beat me. I don’t think it was a fair or an official fight.”

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Germany’s Sven Ottke (27-0) outpointed Thomas Tate of Houston at Nuremberg, Germany, to defend his International Boxing Federation super-middleweight title.

Golf

Greg Norman, ahead by two strokes after the second round, struggled on nearly every hole in the Kemper Open at Potomac, Md., and lost his lead in the water at the sixth hole. Bob Estes and Bob Burns each shot a 69 to lead at 10-under-par 203. Norman shot a 74 to fall to seven under.... Annika Sorenstam shot a five-under 67 to take a five-stroke lead after the second round of the Kellogg-Keebler Classic at Aurora, Ill.

Motor Racing

Agoura Hills’ Tim Huddleston pulled off a rare double, setting a track record with a qualifying time of 18.963 and winning the 50-lap Southern California Auto Club Late Model series feature race at Irwindale Speedway.

Other winners were Dan Fitzgerald in the 40-lap Vista Paint Super Stock series and Rod Johnson in the 35-lap Grand American Modified feature race.

Matt Kenseth became a victim of one of NASCAR’s newest rules when a blown engine sent him from the pole to the back of the field for today’s race at Dover (Del.) International Speedway.

Under NASCAR’s one-engine rule, a change nullifies a driver’s starting position. Kenseth, who blew the engine in his Ford during practice Saturday, will get credit for his first Winston Cup pole.

Greg Biffle overcame several problems and won a three-lap shootout after the race was red-flagged to win the NASCAR Busch Series race at Dover.

Miscellany

Lawrence Phillips, the troubled former NFL first-round pick, signed a one-year contract with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League.

The Kings signed highly regarded forward prospect Jared Aulin to a three-year contract. Aulin, a 20-year-old center acquired in the February 2001 trade that sent All-Star defenseman Rob Blake to Colorado, was a second-round pick by the Avalanche in the 2000 draft. If he hadn’t been signed by the Kings before 2 p.m. Saturday, he would have gone back into the draft pool.