Phil Sheridan: Fallen on hard times, a Philly boxer seeks to rise again

Maybe you only get one miracle per lifetime. Matthew Saad Muhammad seems all right with that. He made the most of his, going from toddler abandoned on the streets of Philadelphia to light-heavyweight champion of the world.

And besides, Saad Muhammad doesn't really need a miracle now. At 56, he just needs one chance to get back on his feet. The boy found on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in 1958 is a man who found himself back on the street again, without a job or a home.

It was the hardest thing Saad Muhammad has had to do, harder than the hours of training and the epic fights that left him and his opponent bloodied, battered and exhausted. About a month ago, he walked into the RHD Ridge Center, the city's largest homeless shelter. This Hall of Famer who earned millions with his fists had to admit he needed a hand.

"I was in a state of shock," Saad Muhammad said Thursday afternoon. "I thought, am I going to go into this shelter? I had to go somewhere. My money ran out. I was going hotel to hotel, [bills] piling up. So I went into the shelter and hoped the shelter could help me make a change."

His story is sadly typical. It would be real news to find a boxer of his generation who was treated fairly and responsibly by promoters and managers, who made smart investments and turned his earnings into some kind of security. Saad Muhammad earned somewhere between $2 million and $4 million in the late 1970s, early 1980s. He had a Rolls-Royce and mink coats and "an entourage" he estimates at up to 60 people.

"I was putting people up in hotels, buying cars," Saad Muhammad said. "I would be nice to other people, help other people out, give to other people."

When the money was rolling in, he didn't ask himself the question he asked during an interview at Alessandro's, a pizza place near the Ridge Center.

"Who's going to take care of me when I'm broke?"

Saad Muhammad, wearing a crisp white dress shirt and a dark suit, spoke of all this without a trace of bitterness. If he was taken advantage of, he knows, he was too trusting, too naïve.

"Stupid me," he said, turning his large hands up.

Really, when you take his full story into account, it is the years of wealth and fame that are remarkable. Born Maxwell Loach, he went to live with an aunt after his mother died. When the aunt couldn't support him any longer, she told his older brother to take the 4-year-old for a walk and lose him on the streets.

A police officer found him and took him to a Catholic orphanage. The nuns named him Matthew Franklin after the saint and the Parkway where he was found wandering. His childhood was marked by fights and stints in reform schools. It was a teacher, a Mr. Carlos, who first suggested that young Matthew turn his penchant for fisticuffs into a positive.

"Mr. Carlos said I should become a professional fighter," Saad Muhammad said.

He was Matt Franklin through an amateur career and the first stages of his pro career. He won the light-heavyweight title in 1979, defeating Marvin Johnson in an eighth-round technical knockout.

He converted to Islam and changed his name. He defended his title. He traveled. He decided to find the family he'd lost as a child, offering $10,000 for information. He succeeded, only to find that the aunt who'd abandoned him hoped to collect the reward. The brother who ditched him wanted money, and Saad Muhammad gave it to him.

What happened next is obvious. Saad Muhammad's style was nearly as punishing to him as it was to his opponents. His fights were torture tests. He'd take a beating, then rally to outlast the other boxer. It was an approach that required incredible toughness and strength and commitment. The more successful he was, the less committed he became.

When Dwight Braxton took his title in 1981, Saad Muhammad admits he had lost his edge. The rematch - by then Braxton had changed his own name to Dwight Muhammad Qawi - was Saad Muhammad's last great fight.

He fought for another decade but was never a contender again.

Nearly twenty years later - he'd worked as a trainer and as a roofer in the intervening years - Saad Muhammad took that tough first step through the door of the center on Ridge Avenue in North Philadelphia.

"It's very hard for men in general," said Catherine Canady, a counselor known to everyone at the center as Miss Cat. "They have to put their pride in their pocket."

Saad Muhammad had the extra burden of his fading fame and vanished wealth. Other residents recognized him and couldn't believe he was there. But that's exactly why Saad Muhammad decided he wanted to tell his story publicly. If he could wind up needing a place to regroup and start over, then so could anyone.

"Anyone can fall down," Saad Muhammad said. "The important thing is whether you can get back up. You have to show you're serious. You have to make commitments and do the right thing. I fully believe that if a person sticks his heart on something, he's going to be successful."

Jose Espinosa befriended Saad Muhammad at the center. Espinosa wrote a moving piece about the former champion for One Step Away, a monthly newspaper produced and sold by the homeless. The message is the one Saad Muhammad stressed during our interview: Adversity can happen to anyone, and it can be overcome.

And frankly, Saad Muhammad hopes telling his story will help him get back on his feet. He would like to be an actor - one of his regrets is turning down the role of Clubber Lang in the Rocky films - or a boxing commentator. His own story practically begs to be made into a movie.

Meanwhile, he remains the same gentle soul as ever.

"He's very humble," Canady said. "He's humble at all times. I expected him to be angry or frustrated or disappointed. But he's not. There's a peace and calm about him. He gives the other men here a sense of worth. He follows the rules and does his chores, and they all see that."

"I want to let them know their life is not over," Saad Muhammad said. "You can become something. If you fall down, you can get back up. Rise to whatever it is you're capable of."

Saad Muhammad has risen once, reaching the greatest heights from the humblest beginnings. He was truly a miracle from the streets.

And now, back on those same streets, he is working to rise again.