Mike Tyson is on the verge of getting a heavyweight championship fight because of a right hand he didn't even throw.

Hasim Rahman threw it, then chanted, "No Lewis-Tyson, no Lewis-Tyson."

The punch knocked Lennox Lewis loose from the WBC-IBF heavyweight titles and out of a major money match with Tyson.

Rahman said he wants to fight Tyson, who will fetch him many millions of dollars more than any other opponent. He also apparently will get Tyson whether he wants him or not.

"Rahman inherited the WBC mandatory defense, and Mike is the mandatory (challenger)," said Shelly Finkel, Tyson's adviser. Tyson is ranked No. 1 by the WBC.

There was a rematch clause in the Rahman-Lewis contract, but, Finkel said, "It's for the fight after the next one."

"I will fight him anywhere to make my dream of regaining the heavyweight championship a reality," Tyson said Sunday in a statement.

First Tyson is scheduled to fight David Izon in a 10-round bout June 2 at Washington's MCI Center.

Rahman, promoted by Cedrick Kushner, is not tied to a television contract, which will allow him to fight Tyson on Showtime.

Lewis has a multifight contract with HBO, which was a sticking point in making a fight with Tyson.

Considered by most fans, writers and others in boxing as the true heavyweight champion, the 34-year-old Lewis suddenly is out of the loop after Rahman's fifth-round knockout just before dawn Sunday in South Africa (late Saturday ET).

Instead of about $30 million to fight Tyson, he would get many millions of dollars less for a rematch against the 28-year-old Rahman, of Baltimore.

Should Tyson beat Rahman, there is no guarantee he would fight the much bigger Lewis. If he did, there would be no such thing as parity in the purse.

Lewis' bargaining chips for a Tyson match, before he lost to Rahman, were the WBC and IBF titles. Tyson's chip was that he was a bigger gate attraction. With Tyson as champion, Lewis would have little to bargain with.

Also on the outside for the time being is John Ruiz, who won the WBA title from a faded Evander Holyfield on March 10. The best Ruiz apparently can hope for now is a third fight with Holyfield, possibly in China.

Tyson has said repeatedly he would not be part of any promotion involving Don King. Ruiz is promoted by King, which apparently would rule out a unification fight between him and Tyson.

Finkel said he talked with Tyson right after Rahman's fifth-round knockout. Asked for Tyson's reaction, Finkel replied: "He said he was going to train hard."

Tyson will be 35 on June 30, and now is no time to take the slightest risk of blowing a chance at becoming a champion again.

Watching Lewis lose on television, Tyson must have had memories of Tokyo, where on Feb. 9, 1990, he lost the undisputed title when he was knocked out by James "Buster" Douglas in the 10th round of a fight he couldn't lose.

Lewis wasn't in shape, physically or mentally.

While Rahman spent about a month in South Africa preparing for the fight at 5,200 feet altitude, Lewis didn't arrive until two weeks before the match at the Carnival City casino outside Johannesburg. He had been in the United States filming a remake of "Oceans Eleven."

He weighed 253 pounds, the heaviest of his career by two pounds. That isn't much, but his legs and wind didn't seem to be at their best, and he was blowing by the fifth round.

His physical condition underscored his mental outlook – Rahman wasn there to be brushed aside.

"This is just what happens in heavyweight boxing," Lewis said. "He hit me with a good shot. That's the situation when you get two big guys in there with right hands."

It's something that happened in Lewis' only previous loss. Oliver McCall dropped him with a right to the head and stopped him in the second round on Sept. 24, 1994. Lewis has said he learned a lesson that night, one he apparently forgot. Maybe he was blinded by the Hollywood stars.

Fans and boxing writers can predict an easy fight, and if they're wrong they can forget it. Boxers should not consider any fight easy until it's over, and it's been proved to have been easy.

Borrowing a page from fellow Briton Prince Naseem Hamed's show book, Lewis made an entrance amid smoke and noise and flashing light. Hamed, by the way, suffered his first loss when he was outpointed by Marco Antonio Barrera in a featherweight fight April 7.

It's not how you enter the ring, it's how you leave.