"Qawi vs. Saad Muhammad" of '81....

MAtt put up a better fight the first time than the second where he was getting punched from one side of the ring to another.

For fight 1, Saad was favored at least a month before the fight but KO magazine went against the grain and correctly chose Dwight.

 

Mr. Bill: are you sure it was the first fight that Saad had trouble making weight? If my memory is correct, it was the rematch that had some problematic weigh in for one of the fighters.

Anyway, I was a college kid when this fight took place, and the LH division at the time was my absolute favorite. Believe it or not, I picked Qawi to beat Saad by stoppage between the 9th and 11th rounds. Everyone at the restaurant I worked in began callie me "Dr. Ferdie Pacheco" after this.

I studied the LH contenders obsessively back in those days. I was convinced that Saad was ready to be taken by the right challenger, and that Qawi was the man with the goods.

In fact, I was convinced that Qawi would beat Saad as early as May, 1981, when I saw Qawi destroy Mike Rossman on national TV. Qawi seemed to wobble and hurt Rossman with every power punch he landed. This impressed me because only two years earlier -- in 1979 -- Rossman had showed a very tough chin in aborbing a beating from Victor Galindez. Rossman was never in danger of going down against the powerful Galindez. Thus, that Qawi could hurt Rossman so easily was evidence to me that Qawi was something special.

Another reason I felt that Qawi would finish Saad off was because of Qawi's amazing workrate: the guy sometimes seemed like a new Henry Armstrong. Once he unloaded an attack, he never stopped punching. I knew that Qawi would not let Saad off the hook after hurting him.

 

Saad was a pretty sizable favorite.

I can't remember about the rematch, but Saad was indeed reported to have had exceptional trouble making weight for the first fight.

However, Saad always had trouble making the weight. For example, when he fought Richie Kates before he even won the title, he had to lose several pounds at the weigh in.

 

Tmorrow to the day Dec. 19, also on a sat. this fight happened. After the 2nd fight, Braxton never fought the same intensity or trained down so hard. but he was surely something from 1980-1982!:rasta

 

Saad felt hard done by and he felt the 'official' scales were faulty and he was forced to drain himself.

As always, he said he was going to try and 'box more'. He just seems flacid to me, when he finally needs to engage Qawi his career catches up with him.

Impressive performance from (then Braxton) Qawi.

 

I thought Braxton beat Holyfield the first time:rasta

 

wholesale boxing .com has it and Great career sets:rasta

 

Qawi just walked right through Saad in the rematch. Saad's strength and durability seemed faded for that one. Easy win for Qawi in six rounds. I didn't expect Saad to win, but I was surprised he collapsed so early in an such a one sided fashion in the rematch.

 

at 4:30 today I will pop in the dvd of the great first fight from 1981, Dec. 19 and watch it on a Sat. just like i did 28 years ago. Howard will start his drone, and i'll be transported back to when boxing mattered and I was in college. Now if i can just get my college girlfriend to show up looking like she did then, then I'll be happy. At least the beer's still cold. While waiting for the fight I will think what a shocker it was that Artuo Frias onepunched the lightweight title off of the head of claude noel :hatlast week.