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| Date | July 12, 1986 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Venue | Omni Coliseum, Atlanta, Georgia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Title(s) on the line | WBA Junior Heavyweight Championship | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tale of the tape | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Result | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Holyfield defeated Muhammad Qawi via Split Decision | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dwight Muhammad Qawi vs. Evander Holyfield , billed as "Pandemonium" was a professional boxing match contested on July 12, 1986 for the WBA Junior Heavyweight championship. [1]
After his defeat by Michael Spinks in March 1983 in a bout for the Undisputed Light Heavyweight Championship, Dwight Muhammad Qawi had been set for a rematch with Spinks in September 1984; however, Qawi was injured three weeks before the fight and had to pull out. He then decided to move up to the new Cruiserweight division and in July 1985 he knocked out Piet Crous to win the WBA cruiserweight title. After making one successful defence against former Undisputed Heavyweight Champion Leon Spinks (brother of Michael) he agreed to face Holyfield.
1984 Olympic bronze medalist Evander Holyfield began his pro career fighting in the Light Heavyweight division before setting himself the goal of unifying the Cruiserweight division as a prelude to becoming a Heavyweight. [2] He was attempting to become the first boxer from the 1984 Olympic boxing team to win a world title.
There were no knockdowns, but the fight was close and competitive with Holyfield outworking and outlanding Qawi. Two judges, Harold Lederman and Neffie Quintana scored the bout for Holyfield 144–140 & 147–138, while the third judge Gordon Volkman scored it for Qawi 143–141 giving Holyfield a split decision victory and his first world title [3] The bout would be named as the best cruiserweight fight of the 1980s by Ring Magazine as well as "One of the last great fifteen round title bouts". [4] [5]
The fight, which is considered by Ring Magazine as the best Cruiserweight fight of all times, was so tough for Holyfield that he declared to the same magazine, years later, that he was about to quit during it. [6]
Holyfield would go unify the WBA & IBF titles by knocking out Rickey Parkey in three rounds before easily beating Muhammad Qawi in a rematch in December 1987. He would then become the first Undisputed Cruiserweight Champion by stopping Carlos de León the following April and quickly moved up to heavyweight.
Qawi would spend most of the rest of his career as a cruiserweight and would have one more unsuccessful bid to reclaim a world title finally retiring in 1999.
Confirmed bouts: [7]
| Country | Broadcaster |
|---|---|
 Mexico | Televisa |
 Philippines | PTV 4 |
 United Kingdom | ITV |
 United States | ABC |
ABC aired the event live as part of ABC's Wide World of Sports , with Al Trautwig and Alex Wallau on the call.
Osvaldo "Ossie" Ocasio is a Puerto Rican former boxer who held the World Cruiserweight Championship from 1982 to 1984. He was also a Top Contender and Heavyweight Challenger in 1979. He scored notable wins against Former Cruiserweight Champion Dwight Muhammad Qawi as well as beating Top Heavyweight Contender Jimmy Young and Heavyweight Contender Pierre Coetzer, as well as drawing with Future Heavyweight Champion Michael Dokes. Nicknamed "Jaws", his peculiar nickname was the result of him accidentally biting another boxer during a sparring session.
Evander Holyfield is an American former professional boxer who competed between 1984 and 2011. He reigned as the undisputed champion at cruiserweight in the late 1980s and at heavyweight in the early 1990s, and was the only boxer in history to win the undisputed championship in two weight classes in the "three belt era", a feat later surpassed by Terence Crawford, Naoya Inoue and Oleksandr Usyk, who became two-weight undisputed champions in the four-belt era. Nicknamed "the Real Deal", Holyfield is the only four-time world heavyweight champion, having held the unified WBA, WBC, and IBF titles from 1990 to 1992, the WBA and IBF titles again from 1993 to 1994, the WBA title a third time from 1996 to 1999; the IBF title a third time from 1997 to 1999 and the WBA title for a fourth time from 2000 to 2001.
Leon Spinks was an American professional boxer who competed from 1977 to 1995. In only his eighth professional fight, he won the undisputed heavyweight championship in 1978 after defeating Muhammad Ali in a split decision, in what is considered one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. Spinks was later stripped of the WBC title for facing Ali in an unapproved rematch seven months later, which he lost by a unanimous decision.
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Dwight Muhammad Qawi is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1978 to 1998. He was a world champion in two weight classes, having held the WBC and Ring magazine light heavyweight titles from 1981 to 1983, and the WBA cruiserweight title from 1985 to 1986. Qawi was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2004.
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