....Especially when Tim Austin is in the Opposite Corner

CINCINNATI, June 13 - Stephen Dotse of Ghana was resting down the hall and it seemed better to let sleeping underdogs lie. His trainer, Johnny Gant - and you'll probably sport a couple of gray hairs if you remember him fighting Sugar Ray Leonard back in 1979, said Dotse's mind was clear and so was his heart.

Dotse, he said, wasn't responsible for what happened to Bobby Tomasello. The last time Dotse fought, last Oct. 20, it was announced he won a ten-round decision over the unbeaten Tomasello up in Boston. It was a grueling, tough fight. The contestants hadn't even gone to the showers yet when they were beckoned back to the ring.

Daniel Ayiteyfio, Dotse's manager, said no way was his tired fighter returning. Besides, he knew nothing good was about to happen. Tomasello went back and heard the announcement that a recount had turned the fight into a draw. He would die undefeated.

Tomasello went back to his dressing room, had a soda, collapsed, and died a few days later. Dotse hasn't fought since and here he is Saturday night, eight months later, making his return against Tim Austin, one of the world's best boxers, in Austin's home town.

"I will win easy," said Dotse.

He had woken up and, on his way to dinner, stopped off for a few minutes' chat, a small wiry man from Accra, Ghana, who was taken to his first pro fight in France by his good friend, Ike Quartey.

Gant, who said Dotse fought much like Quartey - "some guys are boxers, some are sluggers or boxer/sluggers, Steve is a fighter" - said in the eight weeks he has been head trainer of the 100-1 shot from Ghana, he saw no signs of what has happened to other fighters who happened to be in the ring when someone was tragically cut down.

Emile Griffith could never punch as hard after Benny (Kid) Paret. Gabe Ruelas was never the same after Jimmy Garcia, saying when he fought Azumah Nelson, he looked across the ring and saw Garcia.

Gant said it wasn't always that way. He was wearing a T-shirt saluting Sugar Ray Robinson, who told a Congressional hearing after a fatal fight, that hitting the opponent is what he was paid to do. Gant said "It is the nature of the game, Steve knows it's his job, he knows the dangers and in sparring, I have seen no difference in how he's punching."

Back in Ghana, Dotse was a firefighter, his manager said. Yes, he knows dangers.

Ayiteyfio said "the referee should have stopped the bout." The manager said the big thing, though, was that instead of going straight into an oxygen mask and then to a hospital, Tomasello was brought back out to the ring.

"Maybe," he said, and he didn't have to finish the thought.

He said Dotse asked him to please write to the Tomasello family, expressing his sorrow. "The family replied," said Ayiteyfio. "They were impressed by our concern and wished Stephen well."

In a sense, he said, Dotse was also fighting for Tomasello.

The manager told what a fluke that terrible night was, the same night that Andrew (Foul Pole) Golota quit after two rounds against Mike Tyson. Dotse had fought in his new home town of Atlanta the week before, knocking out Marty Robbins in the third round.

For that fight, Dotse weighed 123 pounds. Exactly a week later, against Tomasello, he was weighed in at 130. He has to weigh in here at 118 on Friday afternoon.

"After he won his fight in Atlanta," said Ayiteyfio, "he went out and celebrated with his friends. I didn't know where he was. Then I got the call for the Tomasello fight. Stephen was in shape, the fight was on television and I thought it would be good exposure. But I couldn't find him."

"It was 8 P.M. the day before the fight, I finally found him. I said pack your things," he said. "We got the last two seats on the last flight from Atlanta to Boston. We actually arrived in Boston the day of the flight, after midnight."

The weigh in was 7 P.M. The scale wasn't straight and Dotse came in at 130, but the manager said "I don't think he weighed that much." Dotse, who said today he was already at the 118-pound bantamweight limit, had another problem in Boston.

He forgot his trunks.

"He got basketball pants," said Ayiteyfio.

Dotse, 18-3-1 with 16 knockouts, has not had the well-dressed career that gets fighters on the cover of GQ. There was a loss in his first American fight to Peter Frissina, now on the cusp of becoming an IBF mandatory challenger for Austin. "It was his first fight in more than a year," said Ayiteyfio, "after he moved to this country. And he was coming on at the end."

Gant said it was getting tiresome for the fighter to deal with questions about Tomasello.

Dotse grew up in the same Accra neighborhood as Quartey, was the 1991 African amateur champion, a 1992 Olympian, and turned pro Feb. 6, 1993, for the Acaries brothers in France (the brothers, and Big Brother in the United States, a/k/a the IRS, will probably keep Quartey from ever fighting again, at least in this country).

The Ghanian, who said he was 27 though he is listed by Fight Fax as 31, said Austin "is good, but I can beat him, there's a lot of things I can do."

Dotse has never fought a left-hander as a pro. Has he seen Austin, the brilliant undefeated southpaw? Up close and personal, for 40 rounds of sparring during two weeks in 1999 up in Don King's training camp in Orwell, Ohio.

"I did okay," said Dotse.

He nodded that he understood the pressure following the Tomasello tragedy. He hasn't fought in eight months, but Ayiteyfio said it was because the fighter went back to Ghana, as scheduled, and did not return until January. A scheduled fight in March fell out, then the title shot came up.

At first, it seemed to be rejected. "Because Austin knew about Steve," said the manager.

Actually, when Dotse's name came up, Austin's reaction was, "I know him, a strong kid." There was no trembling. In fact, the choice of Dotse was delayed because of the criticism HBO got - starting on the House - for picking an "ESPN fighter" to meet one of the best. But this is the year of the upset so far. And as Gant said, "Timing is everything."

He was talking about his own career. Gant, whose father owned a grocery store in Washington, who attended college for 12 years before finally getting his degree in business in 1980 while boxing and working summers for the Department of Recreation, was one of those cuties who could fight anyone at anytime. He went 15 rounds in a losing title shot against Angel Espada in Puerto Rico in 1975. He lost to Leonard in 1979, stopped in the eighth round.

"I was supposed to fight him in 1978, but I got hoodwinked by Angelo (Dundee, Leonard's trainer)," said Gant. "He told me I had a fight coming up against Pipino Cuevas (WBA welterweight champion at the time). Much later, Angelo was up in Baltimore, I went up to see him and asked, 'Hey, who's promoting my fight with Cuevas?' It was a hoodwink. If I fought Leonard in 1978, I probably knock him out.

"But when I got him, everything was wrong. I was going through a divorce, I had a paternity suit, someone was trying to take my daughter from me and I was trying to graduate from college. Later that year, I ran into Emanuel Steward and asked him about a fight with Tommy Hearns. He told me, 'Tommy isn't ready for you yet.' Timing is everything."

That's how he got to train Dotse. The original American trainer, Xavier Biggs, moved out of Atlanta last year and Gant, who had helped the corner a couple of times, moved in. He's been training since 1991, a dropout from a career in computer operations.

The same writer who first thought this was a horrible mismatch now believes, yes, it might be, but Dotse sounds too calm, too composed. This could be a fight - a bigger man going down in weight in the home town of a champion. You know about champions trying too hard in front of friends and family.