He became the second-highest-ranked contender in the World Boxing Association's (WBA) light heavyweight division while incarcerated at Rahway State Prison in Avenel, New Jersey.

Muhammad convinced Eddie Gregory, the WBA number 1 contender for the light heavyweight championship, to fight Scott at Rahway in a match televised by HBO.

He fought several more nationally televised matches and rose as high as number 2, but was later stripped of the ranking because of his criminal record and incarceration.

After suffering his first loss more than five months after the López fight, Scott was retried for the murder of Russ, found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

[4] Scott also had a title bout scheduled against John Conteh, the World Boxing Council (WBC) light heavyweight champion, with a $100,000 purse.

[7] According to the Essex County prosecutor's office, around midnight on May 7, Scott and others with him picked up Everett Russ,[b] who was standing outside a bar with a friend.

While in the next building, Scott, Russ, Skinner, and William Spinks—one of the men traveling with Scott—took the elevator up but held it for Yvonne Barrett, who was headed to the same apartment they were.

Scott received the gun from Spinks and pistol-whipped Skinner, ordered him to strip,[4] and threatened to throw him off the building over concerns he would tell police.

[10] Afterward, Spinks pointed the gun at Barrett and took her to her sister's tenth-floor apartment, where $283 and bags containing a white powder substance were stolen.

[4] In another account, Scott claimed he was taking the fall for the robbery for a friend and refused to talk about who borrowed his car, saying, "[t]errible things happen to stool pigeons" (informants).

[4] At Rahway, the prison warden was Robert Hatrak, who had a reputation considered controversial for sympathy toward inmates and an openness toward rehabilitation.

[2] He then conceived of a boxing program, not simply for recreation but where inmates could train to be fighters, corner men, referees, and cutmen as a profession.

[7] While in prison, Scott received regular visits from his wife and three children, and spent time reading books such as the Quran, Etiquette by Amy Vanderbilt, and Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

[5] Scott began making phone calls and writing letters, including to promoters Bob Arum and Don King.

[4] Muhammad began work on a major fight for Scott against Eddie "The Flame" Gregory, who was then the World Boxing Association (WBA) number 1 light heavyweight contender.

As Rahway's prison auditorium would only hold 450 people, Muhammad needed to find a television network willing to host the fight, so he went to HBO.

According to HBO's sports department head at the time, Dave Meister, he found the idea of the fight at Rahway "both off-putting and intriguing and enticing".

[4] Gregory was lined up to make money from this fight in preparation for a bout against WBA light heavyweight champion Mike Rossman.

[8] On fight day, October 12, 1978,[11] Rahway's auditorium was at full capacity, with an additional 1,150 inmates watching on screens in the drill hall.

The new warden, Sidney Hicks, was a guard who had pressed assault charges on Scott at Trenton State Prison for hitting another inmate with a pipe.

[17] ABC Sports declined to provide Scott with national television coverage due to his felony conviction and incarceration.

Approved uses included hiring attorneys for his appeals and paying back his public defenders, donations to a crime victims' fund, and training expenses.

[11] Scott said of the situation in a 1980 phone interview with boxing writer Bernard Fernandez, "A lot of people resented the idea of my making money while I was in prison.

[4] The major concern at the WBA was the championship being held by someone in prison;[4][11] the competing WBC had never ranked Scott due to his incarceration.

[11][20] The WBA cited concerns that as an imprisoned convict, Scott did not set a "good example", and that his opponents were disadvantaged because they had to come to the prison for all of his bouts.

[24] Muhammad expressed support for Scott and a desire to continue to help him, as well as optimism that the WBA decision to strip his ranking would be overturned.

A three judge appeals panel disagreed, stating the unsigned statement was still legal evidence and a search warrant was not necessary for his car.

[29] At this second trial, the prosecutor presented a slightly different version of events, attesting that Scott went into the building alone, robbed Barrett and assaulted Skinner before shooting Russ, who was expecting to receive drugs as well.

[11] Brin-Jonathan Butler and Kurt Emhoff of SB Nation expressed the complexities of Scott's legacy by comparing his crime with his boxing, stating, "If a boxer achieves anything approaching artistry in his craft, we must accept that his finest works are canvasses stained with human blood.

Yet before James Scott offered up his masterpiece against Eddie Gregory in the ring, he also spilled the blood of a dead man, Everett Russ, inside his car.