Hall of Fame boxer Dwight Muhammad Qawi has died, according to multiple reports. He was 72 years old.<\/p>\n
Qawi had an interesting journey to becoming a boxing star as he took up the sport while in prison for an armed robbery.<\/p>\n
He competed in the boxing program at Rahway State Prison in New Jersey, according to the Associated Press<\/a>, before turning pro when he was 25, not long after being released.<\/p>\n Dwight Muhammad Qawi, who was born Dwight Braxton, died this past Friday, his sister Wanda King said. He had been battling dementia for the past five years.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a great father, a great Pop-Pop to his grandchildren,\u201d King told BoxingScene. \u201cHe had a heart of gold, and he fought his dementia illness just like he was fighting in the ring.\u201d<\/p>\n Qawi was born in Baltimore, before being raised in Camden, New Jersey.<\/p>\n He became a two-weight world champion after turning pro, winning the WBC light heavyweight title and WBA cruiserweight title in the 1980s. <\/p>\n He changed his name from Dwight Braxton to Dwight Muhammad Qawi in 1982 after converting to Islam, according to the AP.<\/p>\n Qawi also fought as a heavyweight during his boxing career, before retiring from the sport in 1998 when he was 46 years old.<\/p>\n He finished his career with a 41-11-1 record and was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2004. He recorded 25 knockouts during his career.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hall of Fame boxer Dwight Muhammad Qawi has died, according to multiple reports. He was 72 years old.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,30183,802,30184,85,14323,30185,30186,30187],"class_list":["post-32427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bestof","tag-boxing","tag-lacgroupscannnwbc-light-heavyweight-titlennwba-world-light-heavy","tag-sports","tag-topics","tag-topix","tag-toppics","tag-toppix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}