TOKYO — "Ali might not be around for five rounds," was the cryptic return fire from Mac Foster's camp Wednesday as Foster, his brother and trainer brushed off Muhammad Ali's poetic prediction that he will stop Foster in the fifth round.

Foster didn't say it — his brother Aaron, who helps train him, did. Asked what he thought about Ali's latest psychological warfare thrust — his plan to carry a large sign with the numeral 5 around the ring before their 15-round battle at the Budokan Saturday — Foster told Pacific Stars and Stripes:

"I haven't heard about that. I don't pay any attention to that BS."

"Ali has played his game so long," said Aaron, who was standing by as Foster finished a workout at Toa Fighting Gym, "that everything he does is old. He might not be around for five rounds."

"I'm gonna win," Foster interposed, "in 15 rounds or less." It was a far cry from previous pre-fight predictions that he would knock Ali out after four or five rounds. But in one of his last gym drills before the fight, he appeared tough, edgy and impressive — if not as graceful and classy as Ali in training, at least as fit and powerful.

He has finished sparring — much to the relief of his badly punished sparring partners. As he punched the speed bag, his head nodded and his feet raised slightly in a kind of race horse canter. He ducked and rolled beneath it, as if to avoid a deadly counter, and came up with a right that almost tore the bag from its moorings.

Then he stood and effortlessly took a. large medicine ball that pounded his stomach and ribs like an opponent's glove. Dancing away from that part of the workout, he let out a wild cry and took another punch at the speedbag. It echoed with the velocity of a shot.

"OK?" he testily asked trainer Ralph Gambina, punching his right fist into his left palm. Gambina and Aaron winked and exchanged whispers.

"What were you whispering about?" Foster asked edgily.

"You a policeman?" Gambina replied. "Show me your badge. Bend over." It was the kind of half-good natured, half-tense and earnest exchange that passes between fighter and trainer as the fighter nears post time — the kind that shows he is finely drawn, physically and emotionally, and ready to go.

Among those who watched Foster was his father, 56-year-old Irwin, who flew in Tuesday night for the fight and said he has missed only five or six of his son's bouts.

"He's gonna win," said the elder Foster. "It'll be a tough fight but he's gonna win."

He saw his son on a terrible night in 1970, when Jerry Quarry stopped him in six bloody rounds — Foster's only loss against 30 knockouts.

"That fight was good for him, in a way. It changed his outlook. Matured him."

And Foster himself looked, talked and acted exactly like a young fighter grasping for his first big purse, with the smell of .long green and prestigious victory in his nostrils.

"He (Ali) is gonna get this," Foster said, brandishing a huge fist that looked like the tip of an ox goad, "the urusai (Japanese for shut up) punch. Right in the mouth. Everytime. Tell everyone to yell 'urusai!' when that punch lands and he'll get more — that much harder and that much faster."

"I think he's gonna pull a big surprise Saturday," Gambina said. "Then we're all eatin' Dago spaghetti."

Added sparmate Wayne Kindred:

"A lot of people were born with a lot of different things. Mac Foster, he was born with a punch."

Ali took the day off Wednesday and went to a movie, according to a spokesman for Prime Organizations International, Ltd., the bout's promoters.