Eddie Mustafa Muhammad vs Marvin Johnson

I thought it was the cancelled rematch? That and Mancini-Kim.

 

It always seems to me that the big name Brownsville fighters are underachievers and sort of headcases. Eddie had a rep for being inconsistent with his training/desire. Tyson, Bowe, Judah, Briggs.

I was surprised at how nonchalant Eddie seemed to be when he was throwing his punches. He seemed so open for counters, especially when he threw the right hand.

 

Eddie was tremendously talent but lacked consistent dedication and focus .. at his best, and this fight captures his best, he was a great fighter .. immensely talented .. the problem is that after this performance against the very tough Johnson he got extremely cocky , moved up to heavyweight thew wrong way ands lost a zzzzzfest to Snipes and then had to cut too much weight too fast and lost to Spinks ... to this day I have no clue why he never managed to get a rematch .. does anyone ?

 

A lot of black men especially boxers were mixing with the Nation of Islam in that era.

 

Me too. The light heavy division was so strong back then I imagine there was plenty of money to be made.

 

I believe they did sign for one, and got to the point where TV Guide even showed it airing the week that issue was published but Eddie was too heavy at the weigh-in and it was scrapped.

I remember this because I had been looking forward to it and was so passed off when some other show came on in that time slot that I called the TV station demanding an explanation.

 

https://vault.si.com/vault/1983/07/25/a-friday-night-with-no-fight

Eddie weighed 2 pounds over for the rematch. He was given two hours to make weight and instead went to his room and took a nap.

As for how much money there was to be made, the fight had sold 4,000 tickets as of day before it was scheduled to happen. Eddie was not a draw.

He had talent but talent without drive and discipline is just potential — and potential is a word for something that hasn’t happened and may not.

EMM (Gregory at the time) was No. 1 contender sitting on a title shot when he went to Rahway Prison to fight James Scott. I did that one sometime in the last few months on the ‘what fights did you watch/score today’ sticky thread and James beat Eddie like a rented mule.

So you could get an every-blue-moon performance out of him with the right opponent and the stars aligned or you could watch him get outclassed.

If he couldn’t get motivated to make weight for Spinks, what does it take?

 

Gregory had the great equalizer in each hand and could box well, he was just lazy as hell. He reminds somewhat of Ray Mercer, could chin, could box, good punch and lazy as hell.

 

Interesting ... somehow sounds vaguely familiar now that you mention it .. I'll do some homework ,,. thanks man.

 

Scroll up a couple of posts and read the link.

 

Thanks for the post !

 

To give further clarity to Eddies claims the scales were rigged Bert Sugar put it to the test via his own industrious little means and the scales failed the test.

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/04/sports/sports-people-the-scales-of-justice.html

 

As for the fight an absolute clinic by Mustafa. So relaxed and full of textbook slipping, countering and consistently vicious body blows.

 

To believe this, you have to believe Eddie was in the 160s (if it’s off that far on a 36-pound bag, you have to multiply and add the pounds to see how far off it would have been on Eddie.

I wonder if Bert Sugar (why didn’t he test it with a bag of sugar?) is claiming he did this at the actual weigh-in? Because if you move a set of doctor’s scales or someone messes with it after the weigh-in, it has to be recalibrated. Part of the calibration is to account for the firmness of what it is set on.

I’ll stick with the federal weights and measures people over Flour-Sack Bert.

 

The belief was that the scales were weighing about 2 pounds out once under a decent degree of weight, not commensurately.

Bert did it not long after Eddie failed to make weight. He raced out and got the flour as quick as he could and then whacked it on the scales.