Matthew Saad Muhammad

Matthew Saad Muhammad (1954–2014) was an American professional boxer who held the WBC light heavyweight championship for two and a half years. Fans prized his action-oriented style and his ability to absorb punishment and come back in fights, which earned him the nickname "Miracle Matthew". ¹ He was born in Philadelphia on 16 June 1954 and died there on 25 May 2014, retiring with a record of 39 wins, 29 of them by knockout, 16 losses and 3 draws. ^{1 2} The Arabic stub gives a different birth date, 5 August 1954, and a record of 68 bouts with 49 wins; this record follows the English article and Wikidata and discloses the conflict. ³

He was born Maxwell Antonio Loach. His mother died when he was an infant, and he and his elder brother were sent to live with an aunt; when he was five and she could no longer afford to keep both boys, he was left sleeping on the steps of a church on Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Catholic Social Services took him in, and the nuns named him Matthew Franklin — Matthew for the saint, Franklin for the parkway where he was found. He lived in foster care until a Philadelphia couple adopted him and raised him as their own. ¹

He turned professional in 1974 after a short amateur career of twenty bouts, in which he won the Trenton Golden Gloves in 1973. In 1977 he knocked out Marvin Johnson in the twelfth round for the United States light heavyweight title, and in 1978 he defeated Richie Kates and Yaqui López. On 22 April 1979 he took the WBC world title from Johnson with an eighth-round knockout in Indianapolis. ¹

He defended the title twice against John Conteh — the first decision was voided because his cornermen had used an illegal substance to stop a cut, and he won the rematch by a fourth-round knockout — then against Louis Pergaud, against López in a rematch that The Ring named its 1980 Fight of the Year, surviving twenty unanswered blows in the eighth round and dropping López five times, and against Lottie Mwale, Vonzell Johnson, Murray Sutherland and Jerry Martin, before losing the title to Dwight Muhammad Qawi by a tenth-round knockout in December 1981 and the rematch in the sixth round in August 1982. ¹

He fought sporadically until 1992 with limited success, confronted vision problems, declared bankruptcy in 1986, and boxed in Australia, Spain, the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago; he also appeared once in the forerunner of mixed martial arts in Japan in 1991, losing by submission in 34 seconds. In 1998 he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and he later trained fighters in Atlantic City. ¹

He fought as Matthew Franklin, then converted to Islam after winning the world title in 1979 and took the name Matthew Saad Muhammad. The English article describes him as one of a group of light heavyweight champions of his era who became Muslims and changed their names, and says he confirmed this in interviews after his career, stating that he was inspired to convert by Muhammad Ali's conversion. ¹ No source names a school or branch for him: the Arabic article's categories filing him among converts to Islam and African-American Muslims are filings, not attestation, and Wikidata gives his religion as Islam generally. His school is therefore recorded as unknown in this record, with the evidence preserved in his data. ^{3 2}

In July 2010 he was homeless and living in a shelter in Philadelphia; he later did charity work in the area, including raising money for the homeless. He died in a Philadelphia hospital on 25 May 2014, having been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and was buried at Ivy Hill Cemetery. ^{1 2}

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