How well do you think a prime Dwight Qawi does against other light heavyweight greats ? Who beats him? Spinks is an obvious given.
He does very well. Very underrated win for Spinks. Wouldn’t surprise me if Qawi beat every 175 that came after Spinks with the possible exception of Roy Jones who may be able to escape too quickly in his prime.
I think at his best Qawi is possibly a top 10 Light Heavyweight of all time in regards to H2H. It took an all time great performance from a top 5 Light Heavyweight in Michael Spinks to beat him, and even after Spinks's jabbing masterclass for 7 rounds Qawi cameback in 2nd half and made it somewhat close.
I rate Qawi pretty highly at LHW, more than most guys. I'd favor the top ones to beat him (i.e. Beterbiev, Joe Smith Jr, Hopkins, Jones), but I think they would all be close fights. If it were possible I'd like to see peak Qawi vs Bivol. I think that would be one for the ages as both are tough and understand the range game well.
Qawi has already proven this stylistically. Qawi handled rage and defense well against Saad Muhammad in their first fight. Saad is a much bigger puncher than Bivol and has a 10cm longer reach than Bivol. Qawi walked through Saad in the rematch but the first fight was a clinic in inside fighting and closing the distance. He didn't just out-muscle Saad he outboxed him off-setting his rhythm with jabs to the body and counter rights over the top. Saad is seen as a brawler which is true but he had a huge reach and used his jab very often like in the first Conteh fight. I'm not saying Qawi wipes Bivol, Im just saying he has faced fighters with all those tools at an even a higher level. Qawi fought Spinks and Saad two of the highest talented guys ever at 175, he would give Bivol more than enough to chew on. Based on his overall career and knowing more about him than Bivol who has only had 21 fights , Qawi is the favorite in that matchup at 175.