FROM ALI TO PACQUIAO, MURAD MUHAMMAD IN HIS OWN WORDS PT. 6: THE CHAMP, PRIMETIME AND THE BACKUP PLAN

"I got tired of being a prison promoter...I had all the Muhammads. I was the king of the light heavyweight division for years...Larry Holmes left Don King to come with me and I wanted to do something sensational...I put Larry Holmes, for the first time in over 60 years, a heavyweight title fight in the state of New Jersey in the Harrah's Hotel. We sold it out! 10,000 people showed up. I put it on primetime NBC. Never in the history of boxing have you seen a fight on primetime," stated promoter Murad Muhammad as he spoke openly about the early years of boxing on network TV and much more. Don't miss this behind-the-scenes look into the history of the sport as Murad himself tells his story in his own words. From Muhammad Ali to Manny Pacquiao, he has worked alongside some of the biggest names in boxing and you don't want to miss more of his extremely revealing tales. Check it out!

So the fight is on and they tell my Sensei he couldn't be in the corner, but my Sensei had another gift. He could take pictures, so we got him an apron credential pass to take pictures. They sat me in about the 5th or 6th seat. I like to holla at my fighters. I get it from Bundini Brown. I grew up with Bundini and he had a way of talking and motivated Muhammad when Ali really needed it. I learned that from Bundini. So Eddie was in the fight and Eddie couldn't hear me. I was too far away, so I'm hollering at Eddie because he was doing pretty good, but I'm trying to get his morale up and keep it up. Then all of a sudden, Eddie got hit over the eye and it opened up a gash. He began to retreat. I think that was in the 8th round, so he retreats the entire 9th round. I said to Kareem to put down the camera and use his mouth. He couldn't hear me, so I'm yelling to him to use his mouth. So we come back in the 10th round with a cut over our eye and Marvin [Johnson] is winning and Kareem yells, "Freedom Road! Freedom Road!"

Eddie came out in the 10th looking good. Kareem steady yelling, "Freedom Road Champ! You want to go to the top of the world, you gotta get to the top of the mountain."  Eddie came out and went to work and knocked Marvin Johnson out and he jumped up in the air. That's where Sylvester Stallone got that from; from Eddie Gregory. He jumped up in the air with both legs underneath him and his hands up in the air and he cries, "Allahu Akbar." It shocked me. He came down to his knees and said it again. That means God is great. He gave the credit to God and he became Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. That was my first world champion and one of the greatest moments in my life. Everyone thought it was going to be Scott, but it was Eddie Gregory, my first world champion, and I never gave him the name or pushed him to Islam. He came to Islam that day. He watched me pray and do certain things and I guess that had an influence on him, but he came over.  I will never forget it. This man took a lousy $25,000 to stay with me. I may have…out of all of my 50 world champions and 60 or 70 world contenders, he really, really put in me that what I was doing for these athletes, keep doing it. That man turned down over a half a million dollars, and that was a lot of money back then, for $25,000. He had to believe in me and he had to believe in himself and we became world champions. That was my world champ.

Then I got tired of being a prison promoter. Scott was winning and we were doing well, but there was an inmate that Scott used to box with. I signed him up and his name was Dwight Braxton. He told me he had wanted to fight for a world title and I told him we would have to do something sensational. He said, "Good! Give me James Scott." I said, "Man, you don't want to fight Scott." He said, "Yes I do!" He went in there and beat James Scott and became world champion. That was Dwight Muhammad Qawi. He changed his name to Dwight Muhammad Qawi and again, I did not have no insurance on him other than my character, my way of conducting myself, and I guess he appreciated it. Then Muhammad left Russell and his manager brought him to me and I had all the Muhammads. I was the king of the light heavyweight division for years. That was the beginning of opening up casinos all around this country. I opened up Bally's Park Place for the first time, The Golden Nugget for the first time, Playboy for the first time, Resort International for the first time and Harrah's Hotel for the first time. I was doing it very large and Don King tried to come behind me and steal James Scott and he ran into a brick wall. They told him he couldn't touch James Scott because he was a product of the institution and the only man that can handle anything that's a part of the institution is Murad Muhammad, so he got hot and wanted to sue. He thought that was unconstitutional that a man controlled their entire prison system. Then he tried to come into Atlantic City after I was doing so well and had the biggest fight in New Jersey, where all of the promoters had to come to the Attorney General and the law was you submitted your main event and you would have jurisdiction to a 50 mile radius of the fight if you win that city. What happened was he said he delivered his at 12 o'clock midnight at Bob Lee's home. I told him I had known Bob Lee ever since he gave me my license and I ain't never knew where he lived. So King won. I didn't know what to do, so I took over Larry Holmes.

Larry Holmes left Don King to come with me and I wanted to do something sensational. Like they say, "Murad Muhammad went to the other side of Atlantic City," so I went to Harrah's Hotel. I remember calling old man Harrah and he said, "Murad, we can't do a heavyweight title fight. You know we stand alone. The Strip got all of the hotels." I said, "Mr. Harrah, have you ever went to get your limousine out of the parking lot? How long does it take you?" He said, "About 5 minutes." I said, "And you the boss. Could you imagine hundreds of automobiles on this rock and people had to stand in line to get their cars. They're not going anywhere." He said, "You got a point there." He gave me $1.2 million dollars and I put Larry Holmes, for the first time in over 60 years, a heavyweight title fight in the state of New Jersey in the Harrah's Hotel. We sold it out! 10,000 people showed up. I put it on primetime NBC. Never in the history of boxing have you seen a fight on primetime.

I brought Larry Holmes vs. Scott Frank, Larry Holmes vs. Marvis Frazier and Larry Holmes vs. Carl "The Truth" Williams. When we got to Marvis Frazier, it was the highest ratings ever in the history of primetime TV more less boxing. We were doing a 49 and if Larry wouldn't have knocked Marvis out in the 1st round, we might have hit a 55. We will never know that because it only went 1 round, but it doesn't erase the fact that it was the highest ever. Then I came back with Carl "The Truth" Williams and that did high ratings. That fight was unbelievable and when I put Carl in, he was supposed to be fighting Marvis Frazier. Dr. Ferdie Pacheco told me I didn't need such a tough fight for the undercard. I said, "Yes I do." He asked why. I told him I didn't trust Butch Lewis. He said we [Larry Holmes] got the fight with Michael Spinks, but I don't know. Sure enough, Butch Lewis, after making the deal with him to fight Larry Holmes, he [Spinks] pulled out 2 weeks before the fight. When he pulled out, I moved Carl Williams, who was unknown, away from Marvis up to the main event and the President of NBC looked me in my eyes and said, "Murad, we trust you! This going to be a fight." I told him, "This may be one of the best fights we've put together." Sure enough, Larry Holmes fought this young boy and this young boy was whooping Larry and it was the toughest fight of his career until round 11, round 12, round 13, round 14 and round 15. That's when Larry was taking over and he came back and won a decision. It was a great, great fight.

Those are the things…people ask me, "What were you thinking about putting a semi-event on that's so strong?" I told them because I will never forget when Bob Arum had Victor Galindez fighting…I forgot who it was, but Victor Galindez wanted a certain amount of money and Arum wouldn't give it to him and he walked out of the arena on ABC. Howard Cosell said, "This is a shame and a disgrace to boxing. Bob Arum should be ashamed of himself." Arum was Jewish, Arum was Caucasian and Arum was a lawyer from Harvard. If I had done that or King had done that, we would have been destroyed. They would have never let us come back, but Bob Arum could not produce that fight in the middle of the telecast and I said then, "This will never happen to me." So I always put on a strong undercard and had a stand-by fighter. I would pay that fighter to train as if he was training for a fight. I call it an insurance package. If something happened to one of those fighters, the other one goes in. I did it through my entire career. I will give you an example.

James Scott was getting ready to fight and we had a half an hour to go till telecast and he told me that his gloves were not the right gloves, because he gets special gloves. I said, "They are the same gloves that I have given you your whole career man, since you been with me." He said, "These are not the gloves. They don't fit and I advise you to go to Long Island and get me another pair." I said, "You know how far it is from Long Island to here? There is no way we can get back for the telecast." He said, "Well, I ain't fighting." I told him to give me the gloves. I went out, and when you go outside of the prison, it takes 5 to 10 minutes to get out and 5 to 10 minutes to get back in, and that's just me. It would take you a half an hour to get out and an hour to get in, but because I had a reputation there, they let me in and out. So I went out and went to my truck, took a marker and wrote Muhammad Ali on them. I came back and I said, "Alright man. I'm going to do something that I'm going to get in trouble for." He said, "What's that?" I said, "I'm going to give you Muhammad Ali's gloves. Try his gloves and see if they fit." So he put it on and he said, "Yeah! Now this is what I'm talking about." I'm telling you, these were the same gloves he had on before I went out. I just wrote the name Muhammad Ali on there because I was told by some of the best managers in the world, like Eddie Futch, "The General" Al Braverman and Angelo Dundee, that sometimes, fighters wake up on the wrong side of the bed and you gotta know what to tell them. If you don't know what to tell them, you could lose them. So that fight went on.

Scott Frank, when he was fighting Larry Holmes, told me that his right hand was bothering him. I told him to fight with his left. He said, "You don't understand man. I got a bad hand and I ain't fighting." This was 45 minutes or so before we go on. I asked him when did he know this. He said, "I knew it all the time, but it was bothering me and I can't fight." So I told him, "I will be right back." I went into the locker room of another fighter and I said, "Where your bag at?" He showed me where his bag was. I went in the bag and grabbed this can. I got tape from his trainer. I took the tape and wrapped it around the can and I went back and I said, "Scott, I can lose my license for this, but give me your hand." I sprayed it and when I sprayed it, he said, "What's that?" I told him it was Novocaine. I told him he wasn't going to feel nothing, it may bother him after the fight, but he could make money and make history if he knocks Larry Holmes out. I told him to wait 5 minutes before he moved it. So time went by and I told him to move it. He said, "Yeah, this feels good." I said, "Alright man, go and win the fight."  His trainer asks me, "Where did you get Novocaine from so fast?" I said, "Man, that's Right Guard underarm spray."

It doesn't make them stupid, crazy or freaks. It's just psychological. If you get negativity in your mind…an old trainer told me, "Don't you ever leave your fighter in that room by himself. Someone can pass and say, 'I saw your woman getting screwed last night by another man,' and now his whole fight is out of the window." He told me not to let anyone talk to my fighter or get to my fighter when he is preparing for battle. Muhammad Ali was the same. He would have his wife and children all come by and then he would leave them. I said, "Ali, why you get rid of your wife and children?" He said, "Man, you can't be hugging on babies before a battle. You become soft." So these are some of the things that I will never forget.

BE SURE TO CHECK BACK FOR PART 7 AS MUHAMMAD REVEALS MUCH MORE ABOUT HIS YEARS AS A PROMOTER

CLICK HERE FOR PART 1 OF THIS EXCLUSIVE

CLICK HERE FOR PART 2 OF THIS EXCLUSIVE

CLICK HERE FOR PART 3 OF THIS EXCLUSIVE

CLICK HERE FOR PART 4 OF THIS EXCLUSIVE

CLICK HERE FOR PART 5 OF THIS EXCLUSIVE
 

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