After winning the light-heavyweight title in 1980, EMM defended it twice that same year. In 1981, he ballooned up to heavyweight and was beaten by Renaldo Snipes. Just 2 months later, he went through a big weight loss to defend against Michael Spinks. It doesn't really make sense that he would schedule both fights so close together and especially to fight 1st as a heavy then lose so much weight to get back to Lt. Heavy. Was money the main motivation? Was he simply confident he could beat a legit heavyweight in Snipes and then lose the weight to defend successfully against Spinks? Spinks was no secret. Everybody knew how talented and dangerous he was. Eddie must have known he would have to be at his best to beat him. Wouldn't it have been better for Muhammad to put off the heavyweight venture and concentrate on keeping his weight under control right before Spinks? Did this gamble on his part eventually ruin his career? He got beat in both fights and never really was the same fighter again. Thoughts?
A foolhardy move on his part. I remain convinced that he would have beaten Michael Spinks..with all his incredible ability...had he only been more focused and not weight drained as he was.
No. But he would've beaten Galindez had he not had the same lack of concentration that has plagued his charge 'Sad' Chad.
I read once that he figured that, since HWs are typically slow and dumb, it would be easy money moving up. (this same line of thought has driven the like of Mickey Walker, Billy Conn, et al up in weight) Alas, he thought it would be so easy that he could train on his way into the ring and still be successful.
This is an incredibly well-conceived question and I thank you for it. Did EMM figure with a win over Snipes that he could vacate the 175lb title and just jump straight into bigger money Heavyweight fights? I remember the fight well. Eddie looked like a Weeble with all of that extra 25 lbs strategically placed right around the beltline. Snipes just ran a basic sparring session with jab, move, jab followed by straight right, and move again. Muhammad was helpless and passively followed him around the ring. I remember when he went to the canvas, I thought he plopped like Humpty Dumpty. The high point was Snipes yelling at him "You ain't gonna even win a round!" from his stool. Seeing the shape Muhammad came in for this fight, you would assume he didn't plan on dropping it for a Spinks defense a scant two months away. If he did, it says even more about his already legendary bad judgment.
IMO had Eddie had his head on straight and in shape, Spinks doesn't beat him. And even tho he walked into the Spinks fight looking like a shriveled pear, he was winning rounds until he ran out of gas late in the fight. Whether correct or not, I recall the Associated Press called the fight a 146-146 draw.
There's actually two tales to that theory. One was that Eddie Mustafa Muhammad was just a pound and a half over the 175lb limit for his scheduled rematch for Michael Spinks and after two desperate tries to make weight, and mind you the morning of the fight since this was the era of same day weigh-ins, he simply put couldn't get to 175. Theory number two was that the M.Spinks' promoter Butch Lewis had actually had the weight scale rigged so that Eddie, who actually weighed a precise 177lbs in his fight before against Lottie Mwahle whom he knocked out in just two rounds to become the undisputed ranked #1 lightheavyweight conteder just two months before M.Spink's unification showdown victory over Dwight Muhammad Qawi, wouldn't make the 175lb limit. The story behind that second theory was that Butch Lewis was skeptical of Michael's emotional state of mind going into the scheduled rematch with Mustafa Muhammad because right before Spink's fight with Qawi his fiancee had died in a car accident right after he and her had had an arguement and that quite natuarally deeply crushed him. Then on top of that the night of Spink's fight with Qawi, which was televised live on HBO, Spink's daughter who was just two years old at the time and hadn't seen much of him since the fatal accident and since he started training for the fight visited him in his locker room and after hugging each other she looked him straight in his eyes and asked him where was mommy? Naturally Spinks broke down crying right there and after the dramatic tearful moment and they calmed him down someone in Spink's camp actually had to put him in a mild temporary trance before he made his entrance into the ring, which was actually first. To Spink's credit both physically, mentally and emotionally he was able to sum up a more than good enough performance as he dominated most of the action in registering his 15-round unanimous decision over Qawi, but from a mental/emotional approach on Spink's behalf Butch Lewis took notice. And that's why between the tragedy of Spink's fiancee early that year and what appeared to be a hungry Eddie Mustafa's impressive ko over avoided top ranked contender Mwahle was the skeptical reason that Lewis didn't want to take a chance of putting his man 'Slim'(Spink's other personal nickname by Lewis) in there with the much more focused and obviously hungrier challenger and former champion. So the morning of the fight will to that second theory always be in question of whether or not the promoter Butch Lewis actually had something to do with Eddie Mustafa Muhammad not making weight successfully for his scheduled rematch with Michael Spinks on the morning of July 18, 1983 and scheduled for HBO who upon the fights cancellation actually taped a live version of the melee that ensued due to Muhammad's failure to make weight and with a biker gang, supposedly friends of Eddie's, breaking in on the scene before order was restored. Eddie would serve a one year suspension immediately afterwards and would not fight at 175 again.
