Dwight Muhammad Qawi (Saad fights) vs Eddie Mustafa Muhammad (Marvin Johnson fight)

Give me Qawi via Decision

 

Good post.

It brings up the problems with the "on top" fighters. Man do they ever look good when they face opponents that allows them to utilize their skillset. The other side of the coin is when those on top guys are not on top. Do they look mediocre or what?

 

I had the exact same score Spinks got off to a great start but Qawi made it competitive down the stretch.


Dwight Muhammad Qawi vs Michael Spinks

1 Spinks
2 Spinks
3 Spinks
4 Spinks
5 Spinks
6 Spinks
7 Spinks
8 Qawi 10-8 knockdown
9 Qawi
10 Qawi
11 Qawi
12 Spinks
13 Spinks
14 Qawi
15 Spinks

144-140 Spinks

 

You're criticising Qawi for struggling against Davis and saying he should've finished that fight early but Spinks struggled even more against Davis and arguably could've lost a decision against him hence that shows he wasn't always an easy guy to get rid of or look good against.

As for Qawi being "suspect mentality" he cameback vs Spinks after a very poor start and made it competitive down the stretch even scoring a knockdown although that was more a slip.

He was also in the fight of his life vs Holyfield and certainly showed alot of heart and a strong mentality in that fight.

I also think you're a bit unfair calling him one dimensional he's a very short fighter with as you said "T-Rex arms" there's not alot of other ways he can fight against fighters of over 6 foot when he's only 5'6 it's not like he can go on the backfoot and jab at distance.

 

Spinks vs Qawi

1. Spinks 10-9
2. Spinks 20-18 (Spinks 10-9)
3. Spinks 30-27 (Spinks 10-9) CLOSE
4. Spinks 40-36 (Spinks 10-9)
5. Spinks 50-45 (Spinks 10-9)
6. Spinks 59-55 (Qawi 10-9) CLOSE
7. Spinks 69-64 (Spinks 10-9)
8. Spinks 77-74 (Qawi 10-8)*
9. Spinks 87-83 (Spinks 10-9)
10. Spinks 97-92 (Spinks 10-9)
11. Spinks 106-102 (Qawi 10-9)
12. Spinks 115-112 (Qawi 10-9) CLOSE
13. Spinks 125-121 (Spinks 10-9)
14. Spinks 135-130 (Spinks 10-9)
15. Spinks 145-139 (Spinks 10-9) CLOSE

Very similar, although I was very much new to scoring fights when I last watched this one.

 

Scott smothered him and didn't allow him to get set unless you backed up Scott like Martin did then you ain't beating him it's as simple as that.

 

Gotta say it’s kinda weird how these fighters kept their christian first names while converting to their Muslim names. Still calling themselves Dwight, Eddie an Matthew. ha ha

 

Davis was a good, high quality fighter. I didn't intend to criticise Qawi for having issues per se, but for the way the fight played out, which showed he wasn't always this relentless buzzsaw against someone who stylistically shouldn't have done as well as he did in that kind of fight, imo. especially after being so hurt early. Davis strengths were on the outside and when he could establish movement and his jab, keeping things a more "polite", technical fencing sort of fight. As for the fight with Spinks, I think that own story, and among others, showed that Spinks wasn't necessarily the most skilled of the great 175lbers in an orthodox technical boxer-puncher sense and he could struggle if he let himself be drawn into that sort of fight, or if a sophisticated boxer did not particular struggle to get used to his bizarre, unique rhythm.

On qawi vs Spinks, my impression was always that Spinks discouraged him into second gear early and comfortably maintained things, even if he did slip into a lower gear himself and technically give away some later rounds. I'd need to rewatch it to see if that was too harsh, but I never got the sense Qawi was building any real momentum.

He did against Holyfield, no argument there - a great fight. Now me feeling he was one of the more suspect mentally of notable 70s/80s light-heavies and could be discouraged does NOT mean I think lowly of him to the point I don't think that on his day he couldn't dig deep and fight his ass off. Guys like EMM and Conteh also had suspect mentalities in different ways, but were also capable of a lot of grit/heart. It's never black and white. With Qawi specifically, I'd have more faith in him if he had dug down and kept campaigning at 175, but he seemed to want no part of Spinks, and once he realised Holyfield couldn't be beaten by fighting his only style, he gave an awful effort in their rematch. tbf I do think his motivation seemed to be slipping in general by the Holyfield fights anyway.

It's not unfair to call him one-dimensional. He literally was in a blandly objective sense. Easily among the most one-dimensional of all excellent 175lbers. It's not a case of shitting on him, but because, as you say, he had an unusual build for a 175lber, but was such a little tank that he probably could never have easily made it any lower.

 

I liked Scott, another very good contender from those days, and I don't mean to diminish his effort against EMM, but it was at the time a very unusual fight and the way EMM fought was far from his usual workrate issues...there was something more going on there, and I was just musing on it. Maybe it was simply a case of Scott having his number, though the Marvin Johnson fight would point to that not being the case as he was a fighter that set even more relentless, unorthodox, hard-hitting pressure than James did, or maybe it was just a bad day from an inconsistent fighter and no more than that. It's not a big deal really, EMM lost and that's it.

However, i do think there's little argument that Scott did not benefit in general from the highly partisan, intimidating atmosphere of Rahway, even if the effect was often only a slight one on other fighters, that can be enough in a closely matched contest. He had a "hometown" atmosphere advantage unlike any other at the time.

As far as no one being able to beat Scott if they can't back him up goes...I think you're overestimating his ability here. Sure it would help a lot, but do you really think there weren't any light-heavies that wouldn't be able to primarily outbox him on the turn/backfoot and/or discourage him with power enough ? Are the mostly ten round fights with Yaqui Lopez (who got badly cut very early in the fight), EMM, and generally light-hitting, crafty yet not particulary mobile technicians like Kates and Bunny Johnson (underrated good on his day fighter, but past his prime) enough to say that? Scott wasn't a big hitter, his workrate was high, but not uncommonly so, and while sturdy as ****, he wasn't a freakish tank of a physical specimen like a Dick Tiger.

 

Some great discussion in this thread.

Worth noting that the Qawi knockdown of Spinks was due to him stepping on his foot. They showed a secondary angle that caught it clearly.

 

I think it's more of what Davis did to show the heart he did rather than what Qawi didn't do. Davis got absolutely pummelled in that 1st round and didn't where he was i'm sure alot of referee's today would've stopped it in the 1st round. There's not much else Qawi could've done to get the job done in that 1st round, i guess the barrage being at the end of the 1st round was a bit fortunate for Davis in regards to him surviving. But again Qawi still stopped his man in the end and was well ahead on points despite a brave effort from Davis.

I'd consider it a good performance from Qawi he was ahead on all the judges scorecards by 4 and 5 points and as i said stopped his man convincingly.

Spinks stunned Qawi early with a right hand in the 1st round which may of gave Qawi some pause but it was also Spink's terrific jab that was giving him alot of problems. Spinks in those first 7 rounds put on a jabbing masterclass and again i think it's more due to the fact that Spinks fought a perfect gameplan and is one of the best H2H Light Heavyweights of all time.

I would say Qawi did get some momentum in the 2nd half of the fight and he did make it somewhat uncomfortable for Spinks down the stretch. Qawi wasn't able to really ever get his "buzzsaw" like aggression going but again alot of credit should be given to Spinks for his perfect fight plan rather than Qawi being discouraged and not try his best to win.

Again i think you're being a bit harsh.

Qawi actually wanted a rematch vs Spinks and a rematch was actually set for late 1984 but Qawi got injured in training and the fight got cancelled then Spinks shortly after moved up to Heavyweight. So that actually contradicts what you're saying in regards to "Qawi wanting no part of Spinks".

As for Holyfield/Qawi 2 again you're saying Qawi put in an "awful effort" but i think it's more that Qawi was probably a bit past his prime at this point and Holyfield had peaked at this time and was arguably the best he's ever been at Cruiserweight.

Holyfield is arguably the best H2H Cruiserweight of all time along with Usyk so i don't think getting stopped by a peak Holyfield translates to "an awful performance".

It is because he could do alot of very good things he had a very underrated jab for a small guy, great defence, very good counter puncher. He's not a typical come forward aggressive fighter he's very skillful at what he did and had a multiple array of very good attributes.

 

I think it's no surprise the two guys who beat Scott were fighters who backed him up aka Qawi, Martin.

Scott is one of those fighters that if you don't stop his forward momentum it's going to be hard to beat him. No i'm not saying an outboxer couldn't beat him i think someone like Moore who is a boxer with real KO power could stop him in his tracks. But unless you have real power or you can back up Scott you're going to be in for a rough night end of.

In regards to Eddie Mustafa Muhammad yes the prison atmosphere may of effected him somewhat but Muhammad was an experienced pro at that point and had fought on the road before vs the likes of Galindez in Italy. So i tend to think the whole "prison atmosphere made him lose the fight" is a bit of reach IMO.

Whether or not Muhammad was just flat that night or under estimated Scott i don't know but that seems maybe more plausible to me and the fact Scott had a troubling style for him not allowing him to get set.

 

I don't think Qawi's performance in the Davis fight was some mediocre effort, btw. It's just one that is worthy of some criticism/ analysis within the idea of Qawi being a clearly better fighter than every post-foster lightheavy other than Spinks, or if anyone is claiming he's going to win a wide decision over EMM (which he might, I wouldn't discount a variety of outcomes here).

On Qawi vs Spinks II, I'd actually forgotten that a rematch got so close to being made at that point, so my bad there. I just remembered Qawi going up in weight right after the first bout and being quite inactive. Spinks did defend his 175 belts a few times after it, though, right up until mid 85 so it could obviously still have happened if both had really wanted it. Thinking about it more and looking at the timeline of both fighters, I suspect it was probably a combo of Spinks looking towards challenging Holmes for vastly more money and probably feeling hewasn't the one of the two that really needed the fight, plus Qawi ballooning out of shape by the end of '84 due to whatever issues he had that stopped it. Just quite uninspiring by both really.

Qawi was poor in the 2nd Holyfield fight, he didn't look like he wanted to go through another tough fight more so than it seemed Holyfield had significantly improved. I stand by that.

I agree Qawi was very skilled. I'm a big fan of the guy as a stylist, but despite him having a sophisticated, technical approach to pressuring, it was still a one-dimensional style. He wasn't a Harada, Duran, or Chang/Pryor sort of aggressor.

 

Sure, claiming he outright lost the fight because of the Rahway atmosphere is perhaps too simplistic, it's just that it was such an odd performance for him (that ends up overshadowing a lot of his other efforts to a degree when it comes to discussing his weaknesses) that it does make you wonder to what extent it might have affected him. Especially as he was generally very comfortable against pressure.

A tough night if you don't have real power or can't back him up? No argument here, I just think saying no one is beating him at all if they can't was going too far. We never even saw him fight a fifteen round bout against a few different styles.

 

Eddie was the most annoying boxer to follow.
One fight he looks sensational doing things other boxers could only imagine and the next fight he just seems like he is sleep walking and doesn't care.