Conteh, Pops, Galindez and the three Muhammads - my tribute and thoughts

Ayup everyone, the January blues not getting you down too much I hope?

I've probably bored a few people on the matter before, but there's probably not a past era and particular group of fighters I enjoy watching back or find as interesting overall as the Light-Heavyweight champions from the early to mid eighties. A crop of very good fighters who filled in for a few years between the reigns of two really great ones (Bob Foster beforehand, Michael Spinks afterwards) is how, I imagine, most would sum up those particular days - but to me, when you combine all of them, they formed to make something much, much more than that.

As much as anything, this article is essentially a heads up (a greedy one, I guess, as I count some of the following guys as being amongst my favourite fighters ever historically speaking) to the people who might not be familiar with this particular group and who are looking to seek out some old classics that they've not seen yet, if that's their thing. There's a reasonable claim to be made that all of the guys I'm looking at in this article have been underrated or at least underappreciated to some degree. If you are or were familiar with them back in the day, then it's really just a chance to share you recollections or thoughts on them, their styles, who you think deserves to be remembered as the best amongst them etc.

There were some other very entertaining Light-Heavyweight titlist to consider outside of the six alluded to in the title in this era, namely Mike Rossman and Mate Parlov, not to mention long-time conteders such as Alvaro 'Yaqui' Lopez and Jorge Ahumada, but those fellas don't quite hold the same aura as these other chaps, so they'll only be referenced in passing, usually as opponents to my initial half-dozen. So this leaves us with Victor Galindez, Marvin 'Pops' Johnson, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad (formerly Eddie Gregory), John Conteh, Matthew Saad Muhammad (formerly Matt Franklin) and Dwight Muhammad Qawi (formerly Dwight Braxton).

I mean, seriously - has there ever been any other group of fighters who all peaked at a similar level and competed at the same weight class to serve up the amount of thrilling match ups as regularly and consistently as these guys did? If there was a Light-Heavyweight title fight between 1974 and 1983, it was almost guaranteed that you were going to see some great action and that the two combatants would clash in every way possible, best of all in personality and style.

Let's take Galindez first. As some of you might know, arguably my favourite historical fighter ever. Your typical Argentine boxer - a bit on the short side for his weight class, but broad-shouldered, barrell-chested and mean as hell with it. Similar to our British entry, Mr Conteh, one particularly endearing trait of Galindez's (in a twisted, boxing fan kind of way) was that he wasn't a nice guy in the ring. He was hard as nails and probably would have fought for free. His ruthless, no-nonsense streak is best shown in his rematch with the American Mike Rossman, who had ended Galindez's four year, ten defence tenure as WBA 175 lb champion in 1978 on a thirteenth-round stoppage. After hurting Rossman at the end of the fourth round in their return Galindez, sensing the chance to finish and unable to hear the bell in his own (and the crowd's) frenzy, continued to punch after the bell. An enraged Andy Rossman (brother of Mike) stormed the ring and confronted Galindez - but where most boxers would have realised they would be in real trouble for using their well-trained hands against a non-combatant and walked away, instead the Argentine planted a crisp left hand on Andy's chin!

From that point on, having been outboxed behind the Rossman jab for the first three rounds, Galindez took complete control of the bout, breaking Rossman down to the body and forcing a corner stoppage (Rossman claimed an injured hand, but Galindez had been pouring it on him from rounds four / five onwards with very little coming back) to become the first man ever to regain a Light-Heavyweight title, in what was considered an upset given the nature of their first fight and the amount of gruelling wars Galindez had already been involved in.

Yet for all his bluster and brutality, Galindez could be a deceptively skilled boxer at times, with a vicious counter left hook. In particular, he was a brilliant fighter off the ropes, with the knack of scoring knockdowns or landing fight-turning shots when his back was pressed right up against them; it was such a left hook thrown off the ropes, followed by a right uppercut, which turned the tide against Rossman, for instance. Galindez had trouble landing anything telling on Eddie Mustafa Muhammad for a few rounds (though he eventually got past him with a close, arguably disputable decision), but when he suddenly did floor him in the fifth round of their contest, you might have guessed it was with a right hand thrown while backed up on the ropes as Eddie opened up. Much of Galindez's best work in his classic first fight with Richie Kates was done while he had his back on the ropes, too, luring Kates in and seeing his opporunity to open up.

A word on that first bout with Kates - simply one of the greatest I've ever seen. His face a mask of blood (he seemed to get cut in every fight, more or less, which added to his aura), Galindez scored a dramatic fifteenth round knockout against Kates in South Africa in 1976, with the clock reaching 2:59 in that last round - he knocked his man out with one single, solitary second left. The fight had been gripping and, for my money, neck and neck until that point; I had it all square at 133 apiece going in to round fifteen. The sight of Galindez, bloodied, battered but unbowed, screaming at Kates to stay down as the referee completed the ten count is something which has always stayed with me, and straight away cemented him as a guy I wanted to see and know more of. In all, he went 12-2 in WBA title fights, scoring wins over the likes of Rossman, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Kates, Yaqui Lopez and Jorge Ahumada. With chronic eye troubles, he was dethroned by Marvin Johnson for the last time in 1980, and just months later one of the best value for money fighters of the era was gone, killed at the age of just 32 in a motor racing accident.

So what of the man who ended his days as a champion for good, Marvin Johnson? I tend to think that Pops' career would have been even more successful had there been a Super-Middleweight division in his day - a Middleweight bronze mendal winner at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, this southpaw soon outgrew that division, but always appeard a little small and lacking in brute strength compared to some of his Light-Heavyweight contemporaries. This was perhaps evident in his first professional loss - on the eve of a world title fight and then undefeated, Johnson was knocked out in the twelfth and final round of his epic NABF title fight against the incredible Matthew Saad Muhammad in 1977. This was Taylor-Chavez thirteen years before Taylor-Chavez; ahead on points as the last round began, Johnson had been winning the boxing match, but Saad had been winning the fight, inflicting huge, draining punishment on the more refined Johnson and eventually wearing him down in the nick of time.

Nevertheless, he rebounded to become a three-time world title holder, despite sometimes appearing unsure of what kind of fighter he wanted to be (possibly as a result of boxing so well for long periods against Saad first time out but still coming up short); at times he was boxing, at others he was brawling and trying to smother and roughhouse his man in close. Open to uppercuts and body shots, his over-eagerness cost him dear against an emerging Michael Spinks who, after conceding at leat two of the first three rounds to Pops, knocked him cold with a stunning left hand (half hook, half uppercut) as Johnson got too close and brave for his own good.

However, that same tenacity and willingness to take a good shot to land one of his own saw him stop Jean-Marie Emebe in thirteen utterly brilliant rounds in 1986 (and remember, Johnson was going over the hill by this point), the only time Johnson successfully defended any of his world titles. He lifted the WBC belt by stopping Mate Parlov in 1978, lost it in eight rounds to his old nemesis Saad the next year in his first defence, won the WBA version by dominating Galindez in eleven one-sided rounds before Eddie Mustafa Muhammad usurped him, again in his maiden defence, and when Spinks knocked him out it was assumed that Johnson's days at the high end of boxing were done.....Until 1986, when he stopped the unbeaten Leslie Stewart in seven to regain the WBA title, defending it once in the war with Emebe before Stewart took revenge.

Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, then. Now this guy was one cool cat. Unlike Galindez and Johnson, it took a lot to get him ruffled and his ability to remain cool and expressionless, hardly even blinking, while slipping flurries of shots by mere inches still amazes me to this day. A smooth operator and a very decent puncher when he wanted to be, his only problems were a style that, for whatever reason, didn't always garner full appreciation from the judges and an unfocussed mind which didn't always seem to be on boxing. Early in his career he outscored future champions Matthew Saad Muhammad, and his first world title bout came in 1977, when he travelled to Italy to challenge Galindez for the WBA Light-Heavyweight belt. He boxed beautifully for four rounds before getting uncharacteristically sloppy in the fifth, deciding to open up for the very first time and play in to Galindez's hands, and promptly being decked for his troubles. Later in the fight, a low blow cost him another point - and had it not been for those two lapses in concentration and judgement, Eddie would have taken Galindez's title on a majority decision, rather than losing an extremely narrow and not altogether popular unanimous one.

It took until 1980 for him to get another shot, but he more than made amends. I still think a lot of people are unaware of how gifted Eddie was and how brilliant he could be on his day, and if you're one of those people I'd recommend his victory over Pops Johnson for the WBA title to add to your 'must see' list. Slipping shots effortlessly to the point where you might think he surely had a sixth sense, Eddie was on equal terms with Johnson for about seven rounds, but after that point just went to a whole new level which Johnson had no answer for. It seemed as if every single time Johnson threw that southpaw jab, he got a crisp, perfectly-delivered counter left to the ribs for his troubles - Eddie's work to the body in that fight really was stunning. Stepping up the pace round by round, he was eventually rewarded with the victory, and his world title, when the referee eventually saved Johnson, who by now had been totally dissected by the clinical Eddie, in the eleventh.

Two impressive defences followed, but Eddie was about to push the self-destruct button again. An unsuccessful and poorly-timed Heavyweight experiment in 1981 left him with two months to shift around 25 lb in order to make 175 for his defence against Michael Spinks in 1981. Eddie started well enough, but looked jaded and uninterested as things progressed. He showed how tough he was by rising from a huge, booming right hand knockdown later in the fight, a shot he really had no business getting up from, to see out the full fifteen, but all that awaited him at the end of it all was the loss of his title on a wide decision. His reputation as a man to avoid, combined with poor management, saw him waiting another four years for a title fight, by which point Eddie, known as 'The Flame', was well on his way to being extinguished. Slobodan Kacar defeated him via split decision in an IBF title fight in late 1985, symptomatic of a career which didn't fulfull anything like its promise.

From a WBA champion, let's cross over to a WBC one and take a look at John Conteh. An affable scouser outside the ring, he was anything but affable inside it and won Commonwealth Games gold at 160 lb in 1970. Before his twenty-second birthday he'd already won the clean sweep of British, Commonwealth and European titles from his domestic arch rival Chris Finnegan, showing a sublime and mature display of right hand countering in their first fight, a superb fifteen rounder - and in 1974, when Bob Foster was stripped of his WBC belt for refusing to grant the Argentine Jorge Ahumada (who'd previously held him to a draw) a rematch, Conteh was matched with Ahumanad for the vacant title. Conteh won the title on points, and looked a million dollars in his three successful defences, blasting Lonnie Bennett to pieces in five, outscoring the eternally-ranked Yaqui Lopez practically with one hand (hand injuries would plague Conteh throughout his career) and then knocking out American Len Hutchins in three, in a fight which showed his nasty, spiteful side as well as his skills - Hutchins claimed, with some justification, that Conteh had opened up a cut on his eye via a butt, which only served to anger the Liverpudlian, who was all business as he knowed Hutchins out in the third with a vicious left hand.

But things elsewhere were already starting to fall apart. A combination of management issues and hand injuries repeatedly scuppered a proposed date with mandatory challenger Miguel Cuello. When Conteh finally did sign on the dotted line, he was informed a day later that he was to be stripped of his title. An appeal proved unsuccessful, and in 1978 Conteh, by now hardly able to throw his brittle right hand with its old power and venom, was forced to travel to Belgrade to take on home-town idol Mate Parlov for his old belt. Despite being hurt once and having not one, not two but three points deducted by a referee who clearly seemed to know which way his bread was buttered, most (me included) feel that Conteh had more than done enough to reclaim his title - however, the judges, for reasons best known to themselves, disagreed, and so Conteh returned from Belgrade empty-handed.

With the high life he'd been living now catching up, Conteh's career from that point onwards was largely a damp squib. Dropped twice and needing an obscene verdict to gain a draw against American journeyman Jesse Burnett in 1980, virtually nobody though that the shopworn Conteh had any chance at all when matched with Matthew Saad Muhammad in another WBC title fight later that year, but he surprised many, fighting heroically and leading after thirteen rounds before it all came crumbling down in the fourteenth, a round which saw him decked twice and from which he never really recovered, having to concede the fifteenth to Saad in order to make the final bell. Saad ran out a narrow - but deserved - points winner, and gave a seemingly half-cut Conteh an ignominious rout in the rematch the following year over four rounds.

It was Conteh's penultimate fight before retiring, and effectively brought an end to a career which could, and should have been so much more. But those in the know are aware of just how good Conteh was for a short while, particularly Mickey Duff who, when asked in 1987 if Lloyd Honeyghan was the best fighter he'd ever worked with, baulked at the idea and stated that nobody who'd ever been on his roster could compare to Conteh. A unification between him and WBA champion Galindez would surely have been one for the ages, but sadly we'll never know.

If ever there was a fitting nickname in the history of boxing, it belonged to Matthew Saad Muhammad, who became known as 'Miracle Matthew.' Indeed, he battled (and beat) odds that would have proved too much for many by just making it in to a professional ring at all. He was born Maxwell Antonio Loach in Philadephia in 1954, never knowig his father and losing his mother while still only a toddler. He was taken in by his auntie along with his brother, who found that the addition of two new boys was just too much; at the age of five, young Maxwell was unceremoniously dumped outside the gates of Benjamin Franklin Parkway by his own brother ("I tried to run after him. I ran as fast as I could - I was five years old and running for my life," Saad would later recollect), eventually being found by a group of nuns who took him in to their care and renamed him Matthew 'Matt' Franklin, due to the aforementioned location where they'd discovered him.

Boxing gave him a release for his demons, but his early career was stop-start. Hard to imagine given what followed in recent years, but originally Franklin boxed in a classical style, opting for poise and jabbing exhibions over blood and guts. The problem was that it just wasn't working for him, as decision losses to Wayne McGee and Marvin Camel showed. Beginning to adopt a more exciting, aggressive style in line with his Philly beginnings, he lost a futher verdict to Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, but the fact that he'd floored the future champion and kept it close on the cards was a cause for encouragement. A sensational, victory-from-the-brink-of-defeat win against another future champion, Marvin Johnson in 1977, saw him gatecrash the world ratings after he stopped Johnson in the final round while behind on points, and it was after that fight that he converted to Islam and took on the name that he'd make immortal - Matthew Saad Muhammad. Wins over serious contenders Richie Kates and Yaqui Lopez helped further build the momentum, and in 1979 Saad met Johnson again, this time with Johnson's WBC title on the line. Saad won in eight rounds, and his rise to world champion from the most unpromising of backgrounds was complete.

It tended to be rematches in which Saad was at his best as champion. He was pushed all the way over fifteen thrilling rounds by John Conteh in an early defence, but blew him out in four rounds in a rematch. But it was his return bout against the aforementioned Yaqui Lopez which best encapsulates all that was great about this champion. After an even first seven rounds, Lopez had Saad hurt and out on his feet in the eighth, trapping him on the ropes and unleashing ferocious punishment which no Light-Heavyweight had any business surviving and recovering from. Somehow, Saad not only weathered the storm, but emerged rejuvinated from it, taking control of the bout in the championship rounds and flooring Lopez four times in the fourteenth with his trusty right hand to force a stoppage. Proving that he wasn't a purely one-handed fighter, his reign was also highlighted by his shattering, brutal knockout of challenger Lottie Mwale - Saad used his under used boxing skills to slip a series of shots from his opponent before throwing an overhand right followed by just about the cleanest, most perfectly-executed left uppercut you'd ever wish to see, leaving Mwale out for the ten count - and several more moments after that.

However, Saad's style of fighting took a predictably quick and unforgiving toll. He looked much older than his twenty-seven years as Dwight Muhammad Qawi chopped him down in ten rounds to take his title in 1981, and he received an even more painful beating in the rematch. Sadly, it was an all too familiar tale after that - he fought on for too long, experienced severe financial hardships in retirement and left this world too young, aged just fifty-nine last year. Tragedy and despair in the early and late goings of his life - but in the middle stages he was, beyond any doubt, quite simply one of the most exciting and thrilling fighters there's ever been.

And so to the man who relieved him of his title, Dwight Muhammad Qawi. In his own way, another unlikely success story. A troubled delinquent youth by the name of Dwight Braxton, his hot head eventually landed him in Rahway State Penitentiary, New Jersey, where he joined the boxing programme to escape the mundane frustrations of prison life. He'd never boxed as an amateur prior, and decided to go straight to the professional ranks when he was released, aged 25, in 1978. Unsurprisingly, he won only one of his first three professional fights, but soldiered on and went from a journeyman to a world champion in the space of a few short months in 1981; in May he caught people's attention by knocking out former WBA champion Mike Rossman in seven, before returning, oddly enough, to Rahway prison to fight his former inmate and contender James Scott (the continuation of Scott's career was conditional on all of his fights taking place in the prison). A win there brought him a shot at Matthew Saad Muhammad's WBC title in December, and Braxton looked a million dollars in stopping Saad in ten.

That first fight does a hell of a lot to disspell the lazy myth that seems to have emerged in recent years regarding Qawi / Braxton, almost certainly put forward by those who've never seen him fight, namely that he was just a brawler with toughness but limited skill. Against Saad, you see him using his lack of height (he stood just 5'5.5") to his advantage, skillfully weaving his way in with exceptional head movement and footwork, and also that he had a fantastic array of punches at his disposal. He was also deceptively effective boxing his way inside with his jab, similar to how Andre Ward uses his today. His demolition of Saad should, in my opinion, rank as one of the finest showings any man has ever produced in a Light-Heavyweight title fight. On top of that, there was something visceral about him that just appealed for whatever reason - he always seemed to be wearing a snarl or a sadistic smile as he advanced towards his man, looking for openings in which he could unleash his speedy combinations. He also seemed to take some twisted pleasure in being hit - a mocking wobble of the knees or playing possum to trick his opponent in to thinking they had him hurt was common in Dwight's fights, most famously against George Foreman, many years past his peak and best fighting weight.

After converting to Islam in 1982 and adopting his now better-known name of Dwight Muhammad Qawi, he went on to make three defences of his WBC title, including a repeat win over Saad, before losing a superb battle on points to WBA kingpin Michael Spinks in a fight to sort out just who the best man at 175 was. Despite starting well and even being awarded a dubious knockdown at one stage (Spinks did struggle at time to deal with the sheer pressure and physicality of his opponent) that wasn't Qawi, sadly for him - but he does have the distinction of being the only man listed here to went on to win a world title at a higher weight, lifting the WBA Cruiserweight belt from Piet Crous in 1985. It took the greatest Cruiser of them all, Evander Holyfield, to displace him, and in typical style it was an absolutely sublime fight, in which the experienced, crafty Qawi put his much younger opponent through absolute hell before conceding a fifteen round split decision.

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So, how to rank this fabulous half-dozen as Light-Heavy greats? It's a tough one, for sure. Qawi's post-175 exploits are being ignored here, so I'll go.....

1) Galindez
2) Saad
3) Conteh
4) Qawi
5) Eddie
6) Johnson

That's' based on an overall mix of who they beat, how understandable / valiant their losses where, their consistency and / or the records they compiled in championship fights along with their skill sets. Some razor-tight calls there, but again it goes to show that natural ability isn't the be all and end all - for me, Conteh and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad are the two most natural talents in that list, who had endless potential, and yet they're at 3 and 5 respectively, behind men with less talent but who ground out overall better, more successful careers despite having less to work with.

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What about magical performances that these men conjured up? Well, given how highly I'm rating this group of six, it'd make sense to focus on performances where they showed their best form against each other, so here it goes. The performances from these guys, against another picked from this select group, which showed everything that was good about them.

1) Qawi beating Saad, TKO 10, 1981

Just a sublime showing by Qawi. Saad fell apart completely after this fight, but going in to it he was the man with seven successful WBC defences behind him, who'd been on a tear which saw him compile multiple wins over Conteh, Lopez and Johnson. He barely landed a glove on Qawi all night - a truly stunning display of inside fighting and 'aggressive defence' from Qawi.

2) Eddie Mustafa beating Johnson, TKO 11, 1980

Eddie ascended to the world title thrown fantastically here. One of his tightest defensive displays but, above all, a supreme showing of timing and countering the more aggressive fighter. The way he picked Pops apart to the body was a thing of beauty, but also makes it all the more frustrating that he didn't bring this kind of A-game in to the ring as often as he should have done, as he arguably had more ability than anyone here. Arguably.

3) Saad beating Conteh, UD 15, 1979

This one didn't quite have the fireworks of some of Saad's other outings, but this was arguably the best performance of Conteh's post-championship career. Saad was able to hold an equal footing in the jab exchanges for nine rounds with Conteh (normally an area you'd expect Conteh to dominate) and, despite his Liverpudlian opponent forging a lead between 10 and 13, the champion rebounded in gritty style to floor his man twice and dominate the final six minutes of the contest to retain his belt.

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And finally, the epic, titanic tussles they had amongst themselves. Of course, I could have looked at Johnson-Emebe, Saad-Lopez, Galindez-Kates etc, but in line with the rest of the article I'll keep it to great fights where both the blue and red corner's combatants were from my sacred list of six.

1) Saad beating Johnson, KO 12, 1977

The first meeting between these two with proved prophetic - Saad would claim many other victories from the jaws of defeat as he did here, while Johnson would suffer several disheartening defeats against his contemporaries after things had seemed promising for him. But simply one of the great fights of his era and, in terms of how it unfolded, a forerunner for the more acclaimed and better-known Chavez-Taylor classic of 1990.

2) Galindez beating Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, UD 15, 1977

Not a war, but a quality boxing match where the styles of both men gelled to make a compelling spectacle. Also one of those real testers when it comes to scoring, and likely to divide those who favour clean work and those who prefer aggression. Meritorious from Galindez's perspective as he retained his belt against a man who should, by rights, have had all the tools needed to beat him handsomely.

3) Saad beating Conteh, UD 15, 1979

As mentioned above - one of those fights where both the winner and loser emerge with credit. You see the ability of Conteh along with the never-say-die attitude of Saad encapsulated in to forty-five minutes of drama. Again, like Galindez-Eddie, both men were involved in more thrilling tear ups than this outside of the parameters of what I'm looking for in this article, but it's still great viewing all the same.

Wow, that was a long one. Still with me (I'll settle for you all skipping half of the above and rejoining me now, to be honest)? Good. So, anyone else share my enthusiasm for this particular crop of Light-Heavyweight warriors? A fantastic and underappreciated era, or am I just getting too giddy over a group of men who simply helped bridge the gap between two really elite champions in Foster and Spinks? What do you think about how I've ranked them - did you / do you have any favourites amongst that group, or memories of their fights which stick out? Most of all, for anyone who is unfamiliar with these names, it's just a heads up for you to maybe check them out one day - I guarantee, a career boxset for any of these guys would be money well spent.

Cheers everyone.

Does this come in hardback?

Certainly does, John. £54.99 or £69.99 for a signed copy (those are friend rates). I've PMd you my bank details.

Can someone summarise?

hazharrison wrote:Can someone summarise?

Galindez, Johnson, Eddie, Conteh, Saad, Qawi. Six exciting, generally evenly-matched fighters who all peaked within a few years of each other. Sometimes written off as stop-gap champions or merely good fighers who bridged the gap at 175 between two really outstanding ones in Foster and Spinks. But if you're going to take that harsh view then they're probably the greatest collection of stop-gap champions ever. Memories / thoughts? Who was the best of them? Favourite fights? What fights that didn't materialise between them would interest you, etc?

Chris, can you add some sort of functionality to the forum so we can have it separated out in to pages and then have the ability to bookmark that page etc?

I've got a bit of a soft spot for Saad, so in terms of me ranking him am always going to put him on the proverbial pedestal. Still watch his 2 fights with Lopez on average once a month, sad the way he went.. Shudder when some little jap won by submission inside 30 seconds in the pant grabbing/crotch fondling MMA shambles of a sport.

Before my time that lot. I've seen a lot of Muhammad (more than the others) but it's usually regarded as the strongest stretch in division history.

Fine stuff Chris. As someone who grew up with a few of these fighters its perhaps harder for me to retract the emotion of having favourites than it is someone studying them historically like yourself. Although around at the same time as conteh, your personal fave galindez is actually a touch before my time (i.e. at that age i followed british world champions and ali only!), so i never really formed much of an opinion on him. Conteh was world champion to us brits, so the WBA holders carried less stock and to a degree, I always felt mustapha muhammed and johnson were gatekeeper/perennially there or thereabouts types.... without ever threatening dominance.

What is it about guys called johnson at super-middle/light heavy. Marv, reggie, glen. All very food fighters around when truly elite fighters were, and giving all but those elite a very hard time... without always a lot of credit and certainly with the latter two, without much assistance from the judges)

Whichever, It's the conteh...saad... qawi route that felt like the 'proper' champion to a biassed brit. Conteh was a bit of a hero in this country on both back pages and front pages of the papers. The Saad fight was gutting to watch. Like a lot of Saad fights, it felt like you watched the tougher man win, not the better fighter. But hey that's 15 rounders for you. I developed an irrational dislike for saad, for having the temerity to 'steal' the title in those last two rounds. The scoring was a bit iffy if as well... i think conteh was going to drop a split even without the 14th round. Consequently, when qawi took saad to the cleaners... and he did take him to the cleaners, i took much pleasure in it. In retrospect, the second fight was sickeningly one-sided, on a not dissimilar level to qawi's complete beat down on leon spinks... which may rate as the most brutal pummelling i've witnessed in a boxing ring for as long as it lasted. Qawi lacked that one punch explosiveness, but could deliver JCC style working overs like few others.

As the man who beat the man who beat my man, i always liked qawi, and his valiant efforts against great fighters in spinks and holy, considering his physical stature (still hard to comprehend a 5'6 guy fighting at heavy!) show his quality. I do feel his ability is under-rated by some. That said, I never felt the spinks fight was that close, and although holy qawi 1, is a must see fight he was flattened in the return.

Ultimately, although you have to factor in that, timing is everything in boxing... does saad beat the conteh of '75... does qawi batter the saad of '79... to me you have to think that this was in general, a collection of very good fighters not great ones... the filler in the sandwich between foster and spinks. Conteh may have had the ability to be great, but how many guys can you say that about. Maybe it was the fact that none were true greats that led to so many cracking fights.

As an aside, although i never rated him particularly as a fighter, what i read about him later, and the twists and turns his life took, I had an about turn on Saad Muhammed. There is a film, with a perfect title, waiting to be made.

If people want to watch just one fight of these guys, i'd say saad lopez 2. If you don't have the time, just watch round 8 and be thankful howard foster wasnt refereeing....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2uspofbEX4

Thanks for the reply, milky. Good stuff.

I felt that the Qawi-Spinks fight was competitive throughout without being especially close, just to clarify. Not much in it after ten or thereabouts, but Spinks took control later on. Just about all of the rounds were competitive, but Spinks clearly won at least nine of them, possibly ten. But against a fighter of Spinks’ standing that’s hardly a cause for shame on Qawi’s part, particularly when you see what Spinks did to a couple of other guys in this group (flooring and winning a wide, wide decision against Eddie as well as absolutely flattening Johnson with one of the knockouts of the decade). The Spinks defeat is really the only loss of real significance that Qawi had at Light-Heavy, albeit his time as a contender and then champion ran quicker than a few of the other guys’ here which might help explain that.

Shame there was never a unification bout between this lot. Conteh-Galindez, a Saad-Eddie rematch with Saad more of a finished article or Qawi-Eddie could (did their reigns overlap, just about?) - almost certainly would - have been crackers. I still get the hump a bit when I see how indifferent people are to Galindez! Not as lavishly gifted as some of the others here, but when you look at who he beat, the amount of defences he accumulated and the fact that he became the first man ever to regain a title at 175, I’m convinced that he’s got the best claim to rank highest out of all of them historically.

But then again, I’m his fanboy.

Some of us appreciate your efforts chris, and are occasionally prepared to read posts with more than one paragraph.

Shame conteh galindez never happened, and saad galindez would certainly have been an entertaining slugfest.

I didn't attempt a ranking. I guess if we're following it on the records/achievements scale then galindez maybe does top it On a head to head though he's probably be nearer the middle of the scale for me.

Yep, Galindez's career accomplishments definitely surpass the sum of his parts. I think his lack of early-career success (he only won about half of his first twenty-odd fights) is reflective of the fact that he was a pretty raw talent who originally had no real idea how to translate his brute strength and stamina in to effective boxing. In that sense he was probably the hardest-working of the six above, although curiously he always seemed to be battling weight and having a hard time making 175. Whether that's because he didn't always push himself in training or simply because his frame was too big to make Light-Heavyweight comfortably, who knows. The Cruiserweight division didn't exist until the tail end of his reign, so had he not been able to make Light-Heavy anymore he'd have been in no man's land.

Interesting that when I watched the Galindez-Eddie fight about four years back, I had Eddie winning it pretty handily, even with the knockdown and point deduction. Revisited it again a couple of years later and had Galindez nicking it on a mightily thin one. On paper it's the finest win on Galindez's record, made all the more impressive by the fact that Eddie dominated the early goings and had a great style to undo someone like Victor - but the tight nature of many of the rounds and the debate over whose style was more effective on the night means that there isn't a general agreement on the verdict. If you're one of those ones who thought that Galindez got a home-towner for all intents and purposes, then you'd probably take umbrage to me putting him at the top.

As I said, though - his ability to fight off the ropes and regularly score with fight-changing / knockdown punches from that position, over and over again, always amazes me. His countering skills were considerable.

Obviously Spinks tops all of them...........Top 20 alltime without a doubt......

Pops always thought Galindez was the best of the bunch.............and I agree......

Beat Rossman one handed in the return........and an amazing career turnaround from his Jersey Joe walcott like start......

So pops thought the guy he stopped was better than the guys who knocked him out? Is there an element of always having an excuse for a defeat, but rating the contemporary you did actually beat highest?

Just saying what Pops said...

You're second guessing him..........

I am. Just speculating....interesting that he gets sparked by Eddie and saad twice, but rates the guy he stopped the best.

I suppose it's a waste of time getting any old fighter's opinion then hey ??

It's a surprisingly common thing, fighters stating that the guys who they beat were actually better than the guys who they lost to. You could argue that it's really just a way of reducing the significance of their defeats in their mind, or a way to avoid giving their vanquishors credit - or alternatively to overplay the quality of their own wins.

Anyone remember Toney's 'The Best I've Faced' article which was posted on here a few years back? Best overall boxer (and best overall fighter) was McCallum, best footwork was Nunn, best jab McCallum, hardest hitter Sosa, strongest was Peter, best chin was Thornton, best defence was McCallum, most intelligent was McCallum etc. You might be noticing that the Super-Middleweight who handed Toney his first loss (and what a loss) is nowhere to be seen, curiously enough. Think Toney gave Jones the fastest hands accolade, mind you, but that was all he gave him and he quickly added the caveat that hand speed doesn't mean much and that he only lost that fight because he got too fat in the months beforehand.

Who knows, it's all guesswork but there could be something similar afoot when it comes to Johnson's opinion on Galindez when compared to Eddie and Saad. Unless he's just acknowledging that Galindez was certainly past his best by the time he got his hands on him and is talking about the best version of Galindez which existed a few years before, rather than the version he actually did fight? Because the one he did fight got swept aside pretty easily - I gave Johnson every single round before the stoppage.

Could be....Or maybe Johnson thought he was..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Obviously Spinks tops all of them...........Top 20 alltime without a doubt......

Pops always thought Galindez was the best of the bunch.............and I agree......

Beat Rossman one handed in the return........and an amazing career turnaround from his Jersey Joe walcott like start......

It would be great to see a list of all the Truss nominated "top 20 all time" fighters he's listed on 606.

There'll be 45 at least.

Duran, Spinks, Manny are all in there......

No Hagler though Mate !!

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:I suppose it's a waste of time getting any old fighter's opinion then hey ??

Aren't you mr prickly today trussy. Always interesting to get a fighter's perspective on his opponents, Merely flagging, what Chris has identified as being a trend.

It's not an era I have much interest in aside from Conteh, even though it's before my time can't get over the feeling that a couple of years before he beats Saad with something to spare.

It's an odd era because to me it seemed like timing was everything for a few of them, Saad gets Conteh past his best, Qawi gets a damaged Saad then Spinks cleans up the mess that was left.

As far as Conteh and Galindez go, well the former is easily the better boxer and the latter relied on his size and toughness a bit too much for my liking.

Worthy tribute to one of the greatest eras of my favourite division.

I'd have to put Saad at the top of this half-dozen, I think. Short peak, but what a peak it was. Like Milky, it took a while for me to learn to like him (I was, and remain, a die-hard Conteh fan), but the wars against JC, Johnson and, above all, Lopez are part of boxing history.

Qawi would come second at 175. The only light-heavyweight who really made Spinks sweat for his money to any great degree and he looked like a chunky assassin when he chopped down Saad. I remember Spinks looking slightly spooked straight after that fight and saying that Dwight had "a killer instinct that's unreal". Very good performance to beat Qawi a touch more easily than the scorecards show.

Conteh, as I say, is a favourite of mine, and I make him equal third with Galindez. Obviously didn't make anything like as many defences as Victor but at his peak (73-77 or thereabouts, I didn't see a light-heavy who was better than him, including the Argentine. I've always felt that Galindez was made to measure for Conteh, styles making fights and all that, and it's one of my great regrets that a unification tussle never came about. If Conteh had kept his head screwed on the right way for a little longer, there'd be no debate about Britain's greatest ever fighter. As everyone else has said, though, how many boxers do we say something similar about?

Mustafa Muhammad and Johnson, in that order, round out the list. Names to conjure with, no doubt.

Interested to see that Truss ranks Spinks as an all-time top 20 man, pound for pound. He probably is, just about - in so many ways, his career is comparable with that of Gene Tunney, who I see as somewhere between the 12 to 15 mark. Each lost just the one fight, both to a fighter at the top of his game. However, Tunney really doesn't lose that much caste for his whipping at the hands of Greb. He took his licks, acknowledged that he'd been beaten by a better man and returned the compliment in spades to the point that Greb announced good-naturedly that he didn't want to go round with Gene again. Spinks, on the other hand, has to be docked house points, not so much for the loss to Tyson, as for patently being scared witless of him. Not a very dignified exit for an all-time great. Just as well that Tunney didn't behave like that against his monster of the day, or Dempsey would never have needed to bleat about a long count.

The fights between Tunney and Greb were close affairs and some disputed results although by the last one Tunney had worked Greb out.

I watched the Tyson Spinks fight recently and the 21 year old Tyson ran to the ring and then jumped up and down for the best part of 5 minutes during the announcements. If somebody told me he was coke'd up I'd believe them.  When the bell rings he runs to the centre of the ring flicking his legs backwards in an exaggerated manner, what an exciting fighter he was, imminent violence was palpable.

Who was more scared Bruno or Spinks?

Good question, strongy. Add Norton to the mix before he fought Foreman and I'd say you've got three automatic stretcher-cases as serious as each other.

I think Spinks takes the cake - he looked absolutely sick to his stomach.

I  liked spinks and hated Tyson. I was hoping spinks could be his usual slippery self and counter to a scrappy points win. I watched the ring walks, turned to my mate and said he's lost already. As the captain says, it's always hard to get that out of your mind when judging him, which is harsh for such a great fighter. 

He said he was scared of all his opponents and used it to focus him, but I think he was so terrified it emotionally highjacked him that night.

Strongback wrote:The fights between Tunney and Greb were close affairs and some disputed results although by the last one Tunney had worked Greb out.

I watched the Tyson Spinks fight recently and the 21 year old Tyson ran to the ring and then jumped up and down for the best part of 5 minutes during the announcements. If somebody told me he was coke'd up I'd believe them.  When the bell rings he runs to the centre of the ring flicking his legs backwards in an exaggerated manner, what an exciting fighter he was, imminent violence was palpable.

Who was more scared Bruno or Spinks?

There's an ongoing series on the Guardian site about great rounds of boxing and they covered Tyson v Spinks and there was some interesting stuff about the build up and ring entrance and the impact it had on Spinks.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/the-balls-of-wrath/2014/dec/01/great-rounds-boxing-history-mike-tyson-michael-spinks-round-one

... Interesting read super, cheers. I don't remember the music, just the  general demeanour of total fear surrounding spinks.

Thanks for the input, captain.

Certainly won't argue against Conteh being the favourite in a head-to-header with Galindez. Galindez every bit as nasty and strong but comes off second best in the boxing stakes. Good aggressive counter puncher meets someone who can counter punch aggressively even better than he can (like in the first Finnegan fight) and who has better footwork and a better jab. A one-handed Conteh beat Lopez quite handily and lead after thirteen rounds against Saad which gives you an impression of how good he was before his body started to betray him.

Galindez cut pretty easily and I could envisage a cuts stoppage in favour of Conteh after a ferocious battle, or failing that a decision by about 4-5 rounds for John. Don't think Galindez gets disgraced and he showed against Eddie that he wasn't totally out of his depth against technicians, but Eddie fought a tentative fight in that one which Conteh certainly wouldn't.

As I said, for me Conteh and Eddie Mustafa were the two most gifted boxers of the group, yet they're anything but a top two when you combine all factors.

With regards to the Spinks and Tunney comparison - as a pure 'result' I don't think Spinks getting wiped out by Tyson is all that much worse than Tunney getting systematically trounced by a 12 lb lighter Greb for fifteen rounds (but worse it still is). Spinks was the smaller guy nearing the end of a considerable career against a genuine Heavyweight phenomenon, afterall. On the other hand Tunney was bigger, fresher etc and the 2-1 favourite with a sharp boxing brain, but was still no nearer to solving Greb or stemming the onslaught at the end of the fifteenth as he was in the first.

But as others have said, the indelible image of Spinks, wide-eyed in abject fear and going down for a ten count from a shot which, for me, had no business knocking anyone out in that kind of manner, means that the Tyson loss becomes more than just a poor 'result' on his ledger. Guys such as Berbick and Williams got taken out in the blink of an eye against Tyson, too, but they came to fight and had a go as best they could.

I wonder if we had footage of Tunney taking a hammering against the much smaller Greb (assuming he looked as badly outclassed and overwhelmed as the reports unanimously say he did) if a similar thing might emerge when we look at Tunney's career and standing....Just food for thought more than anything.

Although Tunney improved greatly on that first showing, I feel it's a bit of a myth that he ended up totally reversing the tide on Greb in their series despite the scoreline favouring Gene eventually. Only four out of twenty-three ringside writers gave him the verdict in the second bout, for instance, and NYSAC chairman William Mundoon said that he felt the verdict was "unjustifiable." Tunney was certainly the better man in their third and fifth fights, but in between that most reports indicate that he rode his luck in terms of getting the Newspaper Decision draw in the fourth, with most observers again favouring Greb - and according to Tunney's biography by Jack Cavanaugh, Gene weighed 180 lb in that one, compared to 163 for Greb.

You could argue that Tunney perhaps doesn't get scrutinised as much as he should for his struggles with Greb, although that'd be splitting hairs. Tunney has more wins against notable name opponents at 175 than Spinks (he was the better Heavy though, no argument there) but throughout his 175 lb career Tunney did tend to meet his opponents, such as Levinsky and Carpentier, when they were a little out of form or past their best, or failing that when he held significant weight advantages over them (such as against Loughran and Jeff Smith). But in fairness to Gene, in a time when most of the guys were dropping decisions and losses to each other frequently, with or without those kind of advantages, he was pretty damn consistent against them, so certainly plenty of merit can and should be taken from his achievements at Light-Heavyweight.

I might put Spinks ahead at 175, with Tunney the better Heavy and with a slightly higher pound for pound ranking.

hazharrison wrote:I think Spinks takes the cake - he looked absolutely sick to his stomach.

No different from Walcott crapping his load against Marciano second time around..............Or Liston lying down after getting caught by a pitiful right...Liston was scared stiff !!

Why would Ali-Liston 2 need to be fixed when he got his eye closed and a boxing lesson the first time..

Liston's pitiful collapse is the worst thing I've seen..

i guess its the nature of the humiliation chris. its embarassing to lose to a guy a weight class below you whoever he is. But Tunney was still there after 15 rounds. Fought him again and eventually got the better of the series, on the cards at least.

Its less embarassing for spinks to lose to the force of nature that was mike tyson, but its the manner of it. It's a macho sport, and we like to see our guys go out on their shield not soiling their shorts.

Spinks took the money and ran Milky............Which is reprehensible but in some ways understandable....

A guy that earned what $1million a time at 175.......Getting $14 million bucks and knowing he was past it.............Lost the second Holmes fight !!

People forget Tyson was considered invincible back then.....The last big transcending Boxer........I imagine he was more intimidating than Grebb...........

The biggest joke was how many of these experts and journalists picked Spinks to win..

Everytime Holmes tapped him his legs did a dance..........

He was slower, smaller, lacked a chin at heavy and had limited movement....

He knew it and wanted to spend his money................Reprehensible............but in a way understandable.........

Bit like Haye-Wlad.