Eddie Mustafa Muhammad vs Marvin Johnson

It wasn’t ‘the belief.’ The belief was Eddie failed to make weight.

Funny Michael didn’t weigh in 2 pounds over. Same scales, same day, same time.

The scales were calibrated. EMM could have sent someone to go buy a 25-pound weight at a sporting goods store and demonstrated his claim rather than go take a nap, stand right there until it was sorted out.

We know he was 185 a week before the fight and was reported to be not working hard in the gym.

The fact is, after his first fight with Spinks there are only two fights the rest of his career where he made 175.

There’s just not enough reason to believe he wasn’t overweight.

 

Total bull****. In 1981 it had nothing to do with now.

 

Disagree entirely. This fight showcases Eddies laziness and lack of killer instinct. Should have and could have finished Marvin in 4 at most. Same with Martin. Eddie was lazy and too cautious to commit

 

Here's the actual article i was looking for. Ironically it WAS sugar!!!!!

Mustafa accurately predicted Spinks who historically came in a couple of pounds light in his fights would be bang on 175 and he would be a couple of pounds over. Sugar also took the "sugar " down to the "United States Bureau of Weights and Measures, which certified that it was within an ounce or two of its advertised weight." I'd suggest they'd be pretty accurate.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/tipping-the-scales-of-boxing-justice-1.504997

All of which put us in mind of another weigh-in, almost a quarter of a century ago in Washington, DC. Although Eddie Mustafa Muhammad was the reigning light-heavyweight champion, the bout was being promoted by challenger Michael Spinks's man, Butch Lewis.

Mustafa was convinced that Lewis and the District of Colombia Boxing Commission, with whom the flamboyant promoter still had some juice in the spring of 1981, were plotting to lift his title by manipulating the scale.

On the afternoon of the weigh-in, Michael (Wolf Man) Katz and I visited Eddie Mustafa in his suite, where he predicted that the scales had been rigged in Spinks's favour. "You watch," Mustafa presciently forecast. "Spinks is always in the 172-173 range, but he'll be exactly 175. And I weighed myself at on a hospital scales last night, but I'll be overweight."

He was dead right. When Spinks, after being announced at 175, stepped off the scales, a handler was standing by with a bowl of stew and a bottle of juice mounted on a tray. Spinks was defiantly slurping away by the time Eddie stepped on the scale and weighed in two pounds over the limit.

Moments after that weigh-in, Bert Randolph Sugar, the boxing historian, plagiarist, and at the time, editor of The Ring magazine, dashed out to a nearby supermarket and bought a 20lb sack of - naturally - sugar, which he brought back and weighed on the same device. It weighed 22 lbs on the DC commission scale. Sugar then took the sugar down the street to the United States Bureau of Weights and Measures, which certified that it was within an ounce or two of its advertised weight.