{"id":29688,"date":"2025-07-28T15:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T15:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/29688\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T15:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T15:39:09","slug":"the-great-dwight-muhammad-qawi-has-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/29688\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Dwight Muhammad Qawi has died\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Great Dwight Muhammad Qawi has died\u00a0<\/p>\n

A beacon of Boxing Greatness has left this World aged seventy two, but not before making a mark which passes into pugilistic history and legend, inspired by his determination, power, courage, belief and true grit.<\/p>\n

Born Dwight Braxton on January 5th\u00a01953, Dwight was raised in Camden, New Jersey had a troubled youth and served time in Rahway State Prison where he found boxing and boxing found him. Behind bars he fought and defeated hitherto undefeated James Scott. On his release, Dwight turned pro in 1978<\/p>\n

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And in so doing, \u00a0he turned his life around. His sister Wanda who is seven year older than him said: \u201dDwight was determined to make up for lost time and he was in a hurry to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standing just five feet six and a half inches tall, Dwight \u00a0who converted to Islam and changed his name to Dwight Muhammad Qawi, was a veritable giant in the ring, who was a Fireball, and he himself described his style as: \u201dChopping down trees\u201d
He tore through the rankings. Aptly his nickname was: \u201dThe Camden Buzzsaw.\u201d He won the WBC light heavyweight title in 1981 knocking out Matthew Saad Muhammad in ten tempestuous rounds and stopping him in a return match with a TKO in six. Three successful defences.\u00a0 Then in 1985 Dwight who had moved up to cruiserweight, went to South Africa and won the WBA title from Piet Crous, knocking him out in the eleventh.<\/p>\n

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Fearless and fearsome in the ring, Dwight took on the cream of the boxing crop. He fought Leon and Michael Spinks, Evander Holyfield twice, Mike Rossman, Ossie Ocasio and Big George Foreman.
Dwight always gave it his absolute all. He was NEVER in a dull fight. He retired in 1999, having built a fabulous career of forty one wins, including twenty five KO`s, eleven losses and one draw. Dwight was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2004.<\/p>\n

Post boxing career Dwight worked tirelessly as a drug and alcohol counselor and youth advocate. He died after a five years courageous fight against dementia. He never gave up. So characteristic of the man he was and will always be. He leaves us with a wondrous and awesome legacy of greatness.
As the saying goes: \u201dA beautiful face will age, a perfect body will change. But a beautiful soul, will always be a beautiful soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In a wonderful, heartfelt, marvelous and touching tribute to her younger brother Wanda said: \u201dDwight lost time, with nine years in prison. He felt that he was behind and was determined to get ahead in life. When he came home Dwight went straight to pro. He had great hunger in him and tremendous determination. Dwight had a lot of heart and he was fearless. He was a good guy, everyone loved him, he helped everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201dA former Ring King, Dwight`s greatest battle was against addiction. He fought it himself and that`s why he was able to help so many to overcome it, having been clean of it for so many years. Dwight said it was his greatest battle and his greatest victory. He was fearless. He didn`t fear anything or anyone apart from God.
\u201cDwight was helpful and kind, he had a heart of gold, he would give you the shirt off his back. He helped everyone in the family and he helped so many other people too. And\u2026he was a great Dad. Oh my God, he so loved his two sons and his two grandsons. He took his grandsons everywhere he went and was a great mentor to them. He was a devoted Muslim.<\/p>\n

\u201dAs a brother, Dwight was my best friend. He lived with me for the last ten years, but when he lived in New Jersey he would always check on me, as I would check on him. Every vacation he would come and stay with our Mother. Dwight was a very devoted family person. We would have a lot of family reunions every year and he would try to make every one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The entire World Boxing Council Family, our President Mauricio Sulaiman and the Global Boxing Community send\u00a0 our deepest condolences to Dwight`s family, friends and fans the World over. Dwight passed away on Friday, but his achievements and those wonderful memories will forever shine so bright.<\/p>\n

Rest In Peace Dear Champ. Your greatness as a boxer and as a man will never be forgotten and it will always be cherished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Great Dwight Muhammad Qawi has died\u00a0 A beacon of Boxing Greatness has left this World aged seventy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-29688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}