SAAD TRULY A PHILADELPHIA FIGHTER
Matthew Saad Muhammad
San Francisco, CA– Having fought under the name Matthew Franklin before his conversion to Islam, ex-World light heavyweight (175 lb.) Matthew Saad Muhammad, who was born Maxwell Antonio Loach in 1954, passed away Sunday in a hospital in his native Philadelphia, PA after a long fight with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
READ ABOUT SAAD EARLY ON
Matt Franklin was his name when I first read about him in Jack Fiske columns, this before changing his name to Matthew Saad Muhammad, who went 49-16-3 with 39 whacks. In WBC title fights Saad was 9-2, both losses to Dwight Muhammad Qawi. He fought in a sometimes reckless manner taking a great deal of punishment. Couple that with heart and will of ten men, Saad was the bravest of warriors even after Qawi burst his bubble.
“POPS” JOHNSON HAD THREE TITLE CLAIMS
He beat Marvin Johnson for the title and had a run that was never short of boxing drama. Yaqui Lopez hit him with 20 consecutive blows at one point in round eight before Saad came back and dropped the proud Native American five times before a TKO 14 win.
1980 RING MAGAZINE FIGHT OF YEAR
Remembering his fights being on ABC’s Wide World of Sports and they were always slugfests. Some of the big names he beat included ex-champ John Conteh, the incredibly always close but no cigar Lopez pre-title in 1978 (TKO 11) and and the aforementioned 1980 defense of the WBC title that was the Ring Magazine Fight of The Year. We wish Saad the peace he hasn’t had in decades!
Pedro Fernandez