I have seen people talk about this fight and how Muhammad dominated Johnson, but I can't find the fight anywhere, can someone please paste the link in the comments of this thread?
Maybe my favorite display of body punching. Eddie absolutely pummeled poor Marvin to the body with left hooks and right uppercuts. This content is protected
And one of the best examples of boxing well from a relatively stationary position. We've come to think of "boxing" equating to movement but it isn't necessarily the case.
I thought Eddie looked pretty great against Jesse Burnett and Jerry “The Bull” Martin, too. His issue was that he didn’t have the drive to match his talent. He didn’t have that extra gear needed to propel him into all time great status, either. Even in these fights he looked like he was just going through the motions, and they were among his best performances. Says a lot about his talent that he’s still regarded as one of the very best of one of the Lt. Heavy Golden Ages.
Sensational performance by Eddie, one of my favourites. He was one of those sometimes lackadaisical and inconsistent performers who probably found boxing a bit too easy / natural for his own good, and wasn't always switched on as a result. But those kind of fighters tend to have at least a couple of nights where they string it all together and they show that extra level they've kept hidden, and this was one of those nights for Eddie. And he paced it perfectly. For a few rounds it was a fight, then anywhere after the sixth it became a dissection as Eddie started slipping through the gears. Seemed as if every time Johnson threw a jab, he got a perfect body shot counter for his troubles. As others have said, some of Eddie's body work in that fight was (literally in poor Pops' case) breath-taking. He was so cool throughout as well, slipping shots without ever taking his focus off Johnson and doing it without having to cede ground. Well worth a watch for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
Completely agree. Marvin imo was an ATG who wasn't exactly far from the height of his powers. Eddie did a great performance...I still feel he could have done better against Spinks, not sure what happened there.
He was fighting at Heavyweight just two months prior. He had to lose over 26 pounds during that span to make weight. This was actually the fight that got the ball rolling on the transition to modern 24 hour weigh-ins.
This all reminds me that, back in those days, I told a friend that the light heavyweight champions Matthew Saad Muhammad and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad were formerly Matt Franklin and Eddie Gregory. My friend was convinced I was making it up. Then not too long afterward Dwight Braxton won the LH title and changed his name to Dwight Muhammad Qawi. I miss those days when the Muhammads were contending for and winning titles.