BoxRec

Have been watching a lot of the early Qawi stuff lately. Boy was he a vicious, snarling beast! His performances in the m.s.Muhammad fights are truly outstanding!! How he used his body and positioning to out jab Saad, his switching from head to body, his viciousness. What an amazing little fighter he was. I was ignorant to it before. I mean, I know Saad had had one beating too many by then but these were truly awesome performances!!
And gosh the guy was put together like a brick outhouse!!

He reminded me of Joe Frazier in style. I think he might have reminded Foreman of a JF as well.

BoxBuzz wrote:He reminded me of Joe Frazier in style. I think he might have reminded Foreman of a JF as well.

That was the first time I saw Qawi... And how it remembered him. Boy was I misguided!!

Yep one tough dude. Even more remarkable when you consider he had zero amateur fights and was only 5'7" tall.

The first time I ever saw him was against Leon Spinks, he was absolutely relentless, great fighter to watch. Going back to Rahway to beat James Scott was a hell of a performance too.

Dwight Muhammad Qawi a.k.a. Dwight Braxton was indeed a tough cookie. He fought in one of the light heavyweight division's toughest eras.

BoxBuzz wrote:He reminded me of Joe Frazier in style. I think he might have reminded Foreman of a JF as well.

He trained at Fraziers gym in the late 70's when he got out of prison. Spinks trained there also. I sparred with Braxton once before my first amateur and he kicked my ass. I was jabbing and moving to stay alive and he got me in the corner and double hooked me body, head and the head shot dropped me. I didn't know who he was then and now I can at least say I sparred a bad ass champ.

The "Camden Buzzsaw" was one of my favorite contemporary boxers, much as Evren pointed out he was a savvy, seasoned champion who knew how to use his lack of height to draw in an opponent thus forcing the opponent to have to negotiate within Dwight's punching range. His ability to slip punches and punch off of his jab was a treat to watch, he mixed the number of punches and the pace of the punches executed so that he could not be timed by the opponent.
He was trained by the outstanding Philadelphia lightweight Wesley Mouzon (Who owned a decision win over Lightweight Champion Bob Montgomery over 10 rounds at the ripe old age of 17 years old).
An exciting and vicious fighter when he had to be, I enjoyed watching him work.
Mikey Capp

He was a great fighter. You could make a serious argument that he was one of the Top 10 light heavyweights of all time. His win over Jerry Martin was really impressive.

I would think DMQ is surely among the all-time top 10 light heavies. An absolute pleasure to watch.

evrenb wrote:Have been watching a lot of the early Qawi stuff lately. Boy was he a vicious, snarling beast! His performances in the m.s.Muhammad fights are truly outstanding!! How he used his body and positioning to out jab Saad, his switching from head to body, his viciousness. What an amazing little fighter he was. I was ignorant to it before. I mean, I know Saad had had one beating too many by then but these were truly awesome performances!!
And gosh the guy was put together like a brick outhouse!!

He's one of my faves I all time. He just loved it in there, smiling, snarling, gesturing and fighting like a man possessed. Great fighter.

JMac wrote:

BoxBuzz wrote:He reminded me of Joe Frazier in style. I think he might have reminded Foreman of a JF as well.

He trained at Fraziers gym in the late 70's when he got out of prison. Spinks trained there also. I sparred with Braxton once before my first amateur and he kicked my ass. I was jabbing and moving to stay alive and he got me in the corner and double hooked me body, head and the head shot dropped me. I didn't know who he was then and now I can at least say I sparred a bad ass champ.

I'm guessing he didn't go easy in sparring?

FrozenMixedVegtables wrote:Wring thread but 'Legend' anyway

What does 'wring thread ' mean?

And he was only 5.4 feet tall, which is unbelievable really.

Rexob wrote:And he was only 5.4 feet tall, which is unbelievable really.

I thought he was 5ft 7...but am not certain. How he so effectively outjabbed Saad Muhammad is so impressive. Haven't watched the spinks fight yet but from what I can ascertain he 'didnt turn up'

Tomasino wrote:

JMac wrote:

BoxBuzz wrote:He reminded me of Joe Frazier in style. I think he might have reminded Foreman of a JF as well.

He trained at Fraziers gym in the late 70's when he got out of prison. Spinks trained there also. I sparred with Braxton once before my first amateur and he kicked my ass. I was jabbing and moving to stay alive and he got me in the corner and double hooked me body, head and the head shot dropped me. I didn't know who he was then and now I can at least say I sparred a bad ass champ.

I'm guessing he didn't go easy in sparring?

Haha....no. When I came to the gym, my trainer said get ready which meant I was sparring. I asked, "who am I going with"? and he said Bennie Briscoe. I said what are you crazy? he said well if you don't want to spar Bennie, go home cause it's not Bennie but somebody just as good. My trainer got in the ring with us something he never did before like he was going to try and keep a close eye on the sparring. He says to Braxton, go easy on him, he hasn't had his first fight yet. Braxton kind of pushed my trainer back and said,..."get out of the way, I got a white boy here" and it was on. He was like little Joe Frazier and looked like he wanted to kill me. As I said in the earlier post, I just started jabbing and got on my bicycle running for life until he caught me in the corner. After he dropped me, I looked at my trainer like WTF who you got me in here with? He was doing 6 rounds that day, 2 with me and 2 with 2 other guys. After he finished we talked a little bit and he told me what he dropped me with and said I did OK for a guy who never had a fight yet. Comes to find out, he only just gotten out of prison and hadn't had his first pro fight yet. We sparred in April of '77 and his 1st pro fight was a year later.

Absolutely fantastic story, thanks jmac.

evrenb wrote:

Rexob wrote:And he was only 5.4 feet tall, which is unbelievable really.

I thought he was 5ft 7...but am not certain. How he so effectively outjabbed Saad Muhammad is so impressive. Haven't watched the spinks fight yet but from what I can ascertain he 'didnt turn up'

He definitely did turn up, he just got decisively out-boxed. Spinks cracked him with a big right hand in the first round, making him feel his power almost immediately, which made Qawi a bit more hesitant than usual to open up, but he definitely made an effort of it. He simply couldn't get into any kind of rhythm. Every time he threw his jab, Spinks would (all in one movement) tilt his head subtly off to the left while firing his own counter jab, avoiding Qawi's and landing his almost every time. Beautiful strategy from Futch executed perfectly by Spinks.

Spinks was a boxing genius. Very few light heavies in history could disarm Dwight Qawi the way Spinks did.

I thought Braxton was slowly catching up with him. Spinks did what he had to. I'd have liked to have seen a rematch. Shame Qawi/Braxton couldn't have stayed at 175.

I just didn't see Spinks dominating Qawi like some people have maintained.

Me neither. Mike won on my card. Let's be clear about that. But I thought Qawi came on and was eating away at Spinks's lead.

I strongly agree with you Dwight Muhammad Qawi was a beast at light heavyweight and cruiserweight.