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Dwight Qawi and Evander Holyfield: No Quarter Asked and None Given in the Battle of Atlanta

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QawiHolyProgram“Oh God, the time of trial has come!”-Dorothy Sumner Lunt (Atlanta resident during General William Tecumseh Sherman’s 1864 March to the Sea)

It was only slightly less than two years since Evander Holyfield’s controversial disqualification in the 1984 Olympic semi-final of the light-heavyweight division. Yugoslavian referee Gligorije Novicic called “stop” to break a clinch briefly entwining Holyfield and Kevin Barry of New Zealand, who was holding Evander behind the head yet again after multiple warnings for various infractions and two points deductions (not to mention a standing-eight count courtesy of a short left hook), but not soon enough to curb the momentum of a right-hand body shot and left hook to the head by Evander that sent Barry to the canvas in Los Angeles. Appeals to the IABA on his behalf were heard by unsympathetic ears and Holyfield, who had been demolishing his 178-pound competition to that point, was made to settle for the bronze medal and watch while teammates Tyrell Biggs, Henry Tillman, Frank Tate, Mark Breland, Jerry Page, Pernell Whitaker, Meldrick Taylor, Steve McCrory, and Paul Gonzales would all ascend to the top tier of the presentation platform.

The conspicuous questions being bandied about regarding Holyfield, the hometown hero given his marching orders by Lou Duva-as Sherman had by Ulysses S. Grant-into the 20-foot-square field of combat within Atlanta’s Omni for his first world title shot on national television on July 12, 1986 concerned his age, experience, and stamina. 23 years old, Evander could claim only 11 professional bouts on his résumé and had gone no more than 8 rounds to that point (in a unanimous decision win over future WBO cruiserweight champion Tyrone Booze). This contest, to be broadcast live on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, would be his first 15 rounder.

Not surprisingly, the most vocal advocate of these potentially detrimental deficiencies was Holyfield’s battle-tested adversary, WBA cruiserweight champion Dwight Muhammad Qawi. As infamous for his forked tongue as his left hook, Qawi graphically illustrated their 10-year age differential during one of Evander’s fight-week public workouts by tossing disposable diapers at him. Elmer Smith of the Philadelphia Daily News reported that Qawi later burned Holyfield in effigy. Four months prior to that, Dwight had systematically dispatched Leon Spinks in the first defense of his cruiserweight title and vowed to Evander, sitting ringside with vested interest, that the same bleak fate awaited him. For all of the verbal abuse (and diapers) hurled his way, Holyfield maintained that, “It’s just competition. I don’t hate anybody and I’m not going to pretend like I do. I can’t do things to make somebody feel bad.” Qawi’s terse response was, “Sometimes smiling faces tell lies.”

Psychological skullduggery is a valuable component to initiating and maintaining an advantage over an opponent before, during, and after the engagement of hostilities. Not content with defeating the Confederate forces led by General Joseph Johnston during the Civil War’s Atlanta campaign, William Tecumseh Sherman-by sometimes cruel and drastic measures-sought to devastate the city’s infrastructure as well as the morale of its civilians by unleashing the horrors of war quite literally on their doorsteps. Qawi was similarly hoping to gain a mental stranglehold over Holyfield, thereby placing an added burden on his challenger’s already taxed mind prior to their physical skirmish. Holyfield did make one attempt to penetrate the armor of Qawi’s thick skin by remarking during the press conference the day before the bout, “I’m ready even if we have to do it now”, which prompted Dwight to his feet in a show of launching a pre-emptive strike. Few prizefights live up to their spectacularly contrived billings, but this one-called “Pandemonium”-would exceed expectations by a country mile. Nearly thirty years later it is still considered the greatest fight in cruiserweight history.

I have very vivid memories of being fifteen and sitting before the TV cheering madly for my man Qawi and, forty-five minutes later, hollering “robbery!” With the passing of time and the benefit of numerous subsequent viewings, I have been forced to begrudgingly reassess my conclusion based back then primarily on youthful indignation, not unlike my emotionally biased analysis of Marvin Hagler’s heart-rending loss to Sugar Ray Leonard. After all, “It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation,” proclaimed General Sherman. “War is hell.”

Sporting a brace on his left knee, the 33 year-old Qawi emerged from his corner lacking the explosive aggression he was naturally known for, appearing stiff and sluggish as the younger and quicker Holyfield repeatedly beat him to the punch and deftly sidestepped most returns. Dwight ripped a right uppercut in the second round that momentarily slowed Evander’s progress and hammered home several body shots the effects of which would be quite telling in the rounds to come. Scoring with two consecutive rights before the bell (which had the unusual timbre of one more appropriate to calling schoolchildren to their next class or back from recess) Qawi threw an additional late punch and Holyfield, determined not to be bullied, answered in kind not for the last time that day.

The third round opened with Evander landing three lefts and a hard right and Qawi being warned by referee Vincent Rainone for low blows, a common theme which would ultimately cost him a point deduction. Holyfield was admonished during the third as well for a retaliatory shot below Dwight’s beltline. A seismic shift began in the fourth as Holyfield noticeably appeared to tire from his heretofore relentless pace, backed against the ropes where Qawi fired off an ambidextrous volley of combinations. Because Atlanta was a strategic location through which food, artillery, or reinforcements would travel by rail destined for other major Southern cities to resupply the Confederate Army throughout the Civil War, the invading Union troops systematically dismantled random portions of train tracks. Heated to the point of pliability, they were twisted around tree trunks or into conjoined loops called “Sherman’s neckties”. Often fighting head-to-shoulder, Evander would find himself for all intents and purposes wearing a rejuvenated Qawi like a necktie over the course of the next several rounds, his means of escape severed as the 5-foot-7, 33 year-old champion negated the height and reach supremacy enjoyed by Holyfield as with Matthew Saad Muhammad and Michael Spinks. Spinning off the ropes, Holyfield-arms heavy and little behind the punches he could muster-was pursued, pressured, and punished by a left/right combination, set off balance by a staggering barrage in the final minute of the fourth.

Eager to ride the now cresting wave, Dwight had to be restrained by Vincent Rainone from surging across the ring toward Holyfield’s corner to begin the sixth as the challenger’s mouthpiece had yet to be put in place. The minor delay was hardly a factor as Qawi crouched beneath Evander’s incoming attack, bobbing and weaving and crab-walking forward as he pounded away upstairs and down. Afterwards, Dwight would mockingly smile and shrug in contempt. Following the advisement of George Benton, Holyfield would begin to target in on Qawi’s shoulders with the long-term payoff of the investment being that the champion would grow arm-weary, thus softening some of the sting from those hellacious shots being fired in rapid fashion.

This tactic proved effective, coinciding as it did with the return of Holyfield’s sustained activity and accuracy, if not potency. Evander’s power too, however, would soon blow back in on the second wind even now refueling his lungs. Qawi mouthed off to Holyfield about being cuffed in back of the head and was made to eat a left hook for his insolence, the tyrant turned oppressed. In the ninth, Dwight backed Holyfield into the ring strands and opened up with both hands before trading places and suffering some rope burn of his very own. Holyfield, though, failed to throw even a single shot with his foe trapped in a compromising position and was summarily walked back where Qawi dropped his defenses and spread his hands wide apart yet again, this time as if to say “That all you got?” Sitting on his stool between rounds nine and ten, Holyfield is told by George Benton to “let him punch himself out” while Lou Duva interjects with his assessment that “you look like Muhammad Ali out there.” Evander would go down on all fours early in the tenth, not from a Qawi punch but a puddle of water in his own corner. The two exchange heavy fire mid-ring, but Qawi’s discharges are becoming clearly less frequent and effective. Exultant shouts of “Holy! Holy!” threaten to lift the roof off The Omni as Evander rallies with a succession of unanswered blows, a double left jab which escorted the arrival of a hard right cross taking a visible toll on the tiring champion, breaking down little by little but obstinately refusing to let the wheels come completely off.

Indeed, Qawi lands a stiff left jab which catapults Holyfield off the ropes late in the eleventh and, at Quenzell McCall’s urging to outpunch Evander, stages a short-lived comeback in the twelfth. The thirteenth round proves to be unlucky for Qawi thanks to a brutal combination thrown by Holyfield set in motion by an uppercut and featuring two dazzling left hooks that both times snap his head sideways to his left shoulder at such an angle that Dwight could look back to his corner for guidance without having to pivot the rest of his torso. Having successfully answered his detractors’ queries as to his staying power and punching power, Holyfield’s self-confidence blossoms before the viewer’s very eyes in the championship rounds and, despite slipping to the canvas twice more in the fifteenth due to excess water in both corners, he rocks Qawi with a right lead and blocks or slips the majority of Dwight’s desperate, last-second shots.

Qawi stalks sullenly to his corner as Evander reaches out to pat the retreating soon-to-be ex-champion with one glove and each combatant is hoisted into the air before the scores are tallied and recited. With his Olympic brethren Tyrell Biggs, Mark Breland, Meldrick Taylor, and Pernell Whitaker among the dozens of well-wishers surrounding him, Evander Holyfield wins the split decision and WBA World Cruiserweight Title. Harold Lederman had it a 144-140 Holyfield victory with Neffie Quintana somehow seeing it as a more lopsided 147-138 affair. Only Gordon Volkman gave Dwight Qawi the narrow 143-141 advantage.

As he elected to skip the post-fight press conference, Qawi’s in-ring comments would serve (for the time being) as his version of events. “I don’t think he done enough. I’m the champion. He ran around, pitter-pattered most of the time, holding behind the head. He had all the help in the world. I’m not arguing, I ain’t going nowhere.” With that, the brooding Qawi skipped town probably wishing that he could implement the scorched earth policy commenced by William Tecumseh Sherman 122 years earlier in what he considered a measure of “enlightened war” and burn Atlanta to the ground as he left.

“One of the questions boxers get asked most often is, ‘What is your best fight?’ It’s not an easy question and is a little like asking a mother who her favorite child is,” Evander states in his autobiography Becoming Holyfield. “People expect me to answer with one of the big fights like when I became undisputed heavyweight champ of the world or when I knocked Mike Tyson out. From my point of view,” he confesses, “my greatest fight wasn’t against Mike Tyson, Buster Douglas, George Foreman, Riddick Bowe or any of the other legendary champions I’ve fought. It was against a fellow named Dwight Muhammad Qawi.”

“The Qawi fight in 1986 had been a death march that almost killed me,” concluded Holyfield. Every battle claims its share of collateral damage, to use a most unsympathetic term. The casualty this time around was Dwight Qawi who, unbeknownst to him, had just given his last performance as a truly great first-rate fighter. He would beat former IBF cruiserweight champion Lee Roy Murphy (who took the belt from inaugural title-holder Marvin Camel) by 6th round TKO on the undercard of Holyfield’s successful defense against Ossie Ocasio (who had decisioned Qawi three months prior), which was good enough to warrant an anti-climactic rematch on December 5, 1987 at the Atlantic City Convention Center.

“When he moved in, I could see I was stronger and that I could slip his punches and hit him with uppercuts,” boasted Holyfield whose IBF title alone (won from Ricky Parkey) was on the line due to the fact that they considered Qawi their #1 contender which was at odds with the WBA’s third place ranking, meaning that the fight was unsanctioned in their books and they would therefore refuse to recognize Dwight Qawi as the new champion had he won. Which turned out to be a moot point as Evander flawlessly and effortlessly obliterated the blunted “Camden Buzzsaw”. After picking himself up off the seat of his pants following a Holyfield left hook midway through the fourth, Qawi was afterwards planted flat on his belly by a brutal counter right hook thrown the moment he missed wildly with a looping one of his own. Remaining stretched out on the ring apron eyeball-to-eyeball with the ringside physician for several seconds, Dwight rolled over with great effort onto his knees and waved away referee Randy Neumann who followed through with the ten-count regardless.

Conspicuously absent once more from the post-fight festivities, Qawi instead announced his retirement through manager Rock Newman. He would be much more vocal in a 2007 interview with Rob Scott of Doghouse Boxing entitled “Evander Was juiced!” in which Dwight answered a question regarding who would have won in a make-believe fight between his two main antagonists Holyfield and Michael Spinks by saying that “he (Spinks) wouldn’t have been able to run from Holyfield or even hurt Holyfield enough to keep him off him. Holyfield would have gotten to him, especially using the juice.” He went on to elaborate, “It’s not just Holyfield and boxing but sports period. Using steroids seems like it is being accepted in a lot of sports like it’s fair play, and it’s not.”

As for Qawi’s retirement, that would end three and a half months and thirty-two pounds later when the always ravenous George Foreman came looking for a big-name meal-ticket to feed a semblance of legitimacy to his comeback crusade.

 

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