Tough one. You have 2 great fighters with a real mean streak and relentless attack. Qawi was better defensive and counterpunch wise while Fenech had better workrate and stamina. Qawi has the better win (Matthew Saad Muhammad) while Fenech has a more consistent run with some good names on his resume. Had he gotten the decision against Nelson he would have a clear argument. Still, I think Fenech edges it in terms of resume.
Fenech is greater in terms of resume but I think Qawi was actually the more skilled offensive fighter of the two.
Fenech was a massive weight cutter who enjoyed a size advantage over his opponents. Kind of the inverse with Qawi, especially as he moved up. Should that be factored in?
We’re in coin flip territory here but I might slightly favour Fenech. A victory over Holyfield would’ve tipped it the other way for Qawi, as I count Fenech’s, “draw” with Nelson as a win.
I caught malaria in my backpacking days. I call absolute BS on Azumah even being capable of getting out of bed let alone fighting a hard 12 rounds with Jeff Fenech with malaria. For what it’s worth Jeff claimed he had issues with asthma and allergies prior to the rematch. I don’t put much stock in either claim to be honest.
Everyone reacts differently to different things. I understand one can be malarial in the early stages (or even for a fairly long bit) and be drained somewhat but OK … kind of like the walking pneumonia. I’ve had pneumonia before where it knocked me on my ass and thought I was going to die. I also had walking pneumonia at a later time and just thought I had a cold … not anything completely debilitating. But as we saw with COVID and basically any other malady you might name, everything hits different people differently. I had some friends completely wiped out by COVID and others who got basically the sniffles. Just because your case of malaria was that bad doesn’t mean everyone who gets malaria reacts the same way or has as bad a dose. And I’ve never seen anything to refute Azumah’s claim. He was even named spokesperson for malaria prevention by his government. He sure looked like a different guy in the rematch, and also notably about like the Nelson we’ve seen in most of his other fights. I’ll take him at his word. On topic, I think Qawi was a better fighter than Fenech. Not by a mile, but by more than an inch.