Matthew Saad Muhammad vs Victor Galindez, 1979, Title Unification Match

Matthew is just stepping into his prime.

He’s brutally strong. He’s inhumanly resilient. He’s a guy who wears opponents down from attrition and 15 rounds with him is a taxing proposition.

Victor is getting shopworn by this stage. The Rossman rematch — and let’s face it, Rossman was more what I call a world-class journeyman and a one-hit wonder, had a great game plan to target and bust up Victor’s scar tissue the firs time around — was the last hoorah for Galindez.

I think this is an interesting chess match of a war for about 8-9 rounds and then Matthew’s strength and firepower start to show. MSM via TKO 10.

 

Exactly how I see it.

 

Yea, good perspective on styles and out come, of which I would agree with.

 

I am confident that w/ Matt being thrust into his prime for 2 years of invaluable experience in wars by now, and Galindez declining due to his own wars of the past 5 yrs. esp. that Matt will stop Galindez. The one thing I can't figure out if who will start out defensive and who will assume the role of aggressor. I just don't know since both typically were defensive early on. I could see Galindez starting faster than usual to try to knock Saad out before Saad cuts him up, but ultimately does get sliced up and out-slugged by Matt, who stops him in 11. If Matt started aggressively, the fight might end by round 8. Awesome but one-sided fight.

 

Thinking about it a bit further, I do see Victor having some moments with his counter-punching — body and head — but at some point he goes to the posture where he’s most comfortable, the ropes, and that’s like dangling raw meat in front of the tiger that is Saad Muhammad.

Because while he might also nail MSM with a few well-timed counters from that posture, Matthew is not going to disengage from that position. He’s going to continue to rain power punches through and bust Galindez up and then take him out.

It ends with the ref waving it off and a bloodied Victor half-slumped along those ropes.

 

Saad KO.

 

Saad would have beaten Galindez by 1978.

 

Great thread and great posts, Lads. Nicely done.

 

Either Saad wins a UD, a very strong one, or he stops Victor in between 11-13 rounds.

 

considering how cut-prone Galindez was and what a killer finisher Saad was, I think we can guess which outcome is going to happen

 

No doubt. But it would have been interesting to see them go at it prime vs prime.

 

Certainly. I think it would be a very good, two-sided fight for probably eight rounds a least. It would grow one-sided at a point though, and the ref would have to save Galindez from his own courage.

 

By '79 Saad takes this rather routinely. Prime for prime is a really interesting fight though.