If Riddick Bowe had the dedication of Marciano? Would he be one of the best?

I really wanna hear about that only if it really happened though.

 

Eddie was old, at this point, and, tbh, probably dialing it in a bit. Bowe had the tools, the aggression, the size, and the power to walk through 99% of the division. Futch had all he could handle getting him sharp and in shape. It probably never got around to truly sophisticated technical refinement.

It remains Riddick's most dramatic technical weakness, second perhaps only to his absence of head and shoulder movement in the kitchen.

I wish he'd retire. He still calls out a name on the social networking stuff from time to time. Scares me.

I never did experience Bowe at his best. All my gym experience with him was when he was much younger. His period right after the Olympics, right up till his 15th or 16th pro fight, he improves pretty radically; His presence in close improves, he slides left and right to set up uppercuts and hooks, his jab, when used, becomes a presence...He fights like a mature fighter, and it's pretty cool to watch it happen and sort of coincide with his physical maturation a bit. Also helps explain why, super early on in his pro career, guys he later defeated were kicking the tar out of him in gym wars.

The shame is, once you become a mature fighter, you are supposed to start learning to be a smart fighter. That NEVER happened for Riddick. Holyfield II? A champion in his prime, hitting his stride, should never fall victim to off-rhythm footwork, double California jabs...Great call by Manny Steward, but really, a simple gameplan, and it flummoxed the peaking heavyweight champion of the world.

What might have been, eh?

 

Bowe's early fizzling out was to a large degree due to his blatant disregard for his opponents' power, I'd imagine, coupled perhaps with physiological reasons that hastened his mental deterioration.

In order for him to have had any sort of consistency he'd have needed to have fought in a completely different way, and I'm not convinced he had the mentality or the ring smarts to have fought a disciplined fight the way someone like Wlad is able to.

It wasn't lack of conditioning that was Bowe's downfall, but his style.

 

Very cool stuff Magna how Bowe progressed rapidly and all.
These Brooklyn bangers peak early! Just curious Magna what
is your style? Boxer/puncher? And what do you think is holding
Bowe back from working behind the scenes in boxing? Last
I heard Bowe was broke and trying to make a comeback, expecting
The kind of dough he made in the 90s. Im from Jersey and found out
like a day later that I missed a signing Bowe did forget where, was a year
Or two ago in the new york area. Is he still doing this stuff?

 

I honestly see no reason why Bowe couldn't have established himself as a great Heavyweight. Good jab, decent power, could shorten up his punches inside, and perhaps more importantly than anything else, we later found out that he could take a beating. Golota beat the ever-loving **** out of Bowe in their rematch but he refused to stay down, he refused to give in, and in the end it was the Polish fighter that went looking for a way out. Bowe never fought a Lennox Lewis or a Mike Tyson, two great Heavyweights in their own right, but if he had then we can say for absolute certainty that it would have taken more than one shot from either of them to have finished Bowe. I know he caught a lot of flack for throwing his title in the trash, but Bowe wasn't a coward. He had big, brass balls. If you have those on top of world class ability, good size, and decent punch resistance, you can go very far in this sport. Riddick Bowe looked like a world beater against Evander Holyfield in '92.

Edit: I don't go along with the idea that Bowe burnt out quickly due to his style. Bowe was known to get hit, sure, but he never really took a beating until he fought Andrew Golota by which time he was already a shell. No, Bowe faded quicker than most due to his attitude and work ethic rather than anything else. Eddie Futch, the man who trained him, has talked about on more than one occasion of Bowe's out of ring habits.

 

Yes

 

Do "great" heavyweights get all they can handle in Pierre Coetzer and have to low blow him into submission in order to pick up the victory?

Wonder how a Foreman (who blew out Coetzer) would have done versus Bowe?

 

Good insight, do you think Bowe could have beat Lennox when the fight was supposed to happen

 

The bold is why Bowe would have never established himself as a ATG heavyweight. He could take a punch in the ring, sure, but as we saw over the course of his career, the accumulated punishment took a very heavy toll on his mental state in a very short time. Even a determined, well conditioned Bowe would have had a short career with the style he had unless he could have drastically tightened up his defence and supressed his natural instincts to go to war on the inside. That would have made him a different fighter however. Bowe was what he was.

And while Bowe looked great in the first Holyfield fight, you can't just take that performance and apply it to every single top fighter of the nineties as though they're carbon copy clones of Evander. Bowe never really established himself against a top bigger fighter until he fought Golota, and we saw what happened there.

He never really proved his dominance over a wide enough range of fighters for me to have even entertained the idea of his being one of the best. Douglas has a win over a peak Tyson, McCall over Lewis, Sanders over Wlad. Bowe was better than those three, but that much better? I don't see it.

Disagree strongly here. Bowe's very style had him shipping punishment and putting himself into his opponent's wheelhouse almost every time out. It was his MO. Take one to give one. Golota was far from the first time he got busted up. He was already displaying signs of brain damage at the end of the Holyfield trilogy, and got rocked bad numerous times against Herbie Hide two years before. That's just off the top of my head. Was also a notorious gym warrior I believe.

His poor work ethic definitely contributed to his downfall, but it's not like he was killing himself to make a contracted weight like Hatton or Duran. It was the punches he took due to his fundamental stylistic deficiencies that are the main culprit here.

Regardless of what the reason was, the man was not cut out for longevity. I think that much we can agree on.

 

Yes, but for all his flaws in and out of the ring youd be
a dick not to put him in the top 15 all time heavyweights.
I like the idea that if he perfected his outside game and
utilized he would have been around longer or had a more
versatile resume. If he worked the jab all night long and
brawled against those who got threw his jab he would
have taken less shots for sure. Bowe is a piece of work
Though, one of the "bad boys" of boxing. I have him top
5 H2H, if he beat Lewis, Tyson and a few others he cracks
Top 10 he was that good.
Imagine what Manny could have done with Bowe!

 

I think he might be struggling to break into the inner workings due to lack of interest and a miserable reputation, frankly. He hasn't led the most charmed post ring life, there.

Pretty sure he called Chauncey Welliver out on Facebook the other day. Him fighting anybody under 40 is terrifying to me, he's punchy as hell.

As for me, I'd like to think I can box, and I can, a bit, but in the end, it always ended up with me swinging for the fences as hard and as fast as I could, trying to knock a guy over. I was really good at landing the power off the counter or the jab, though. I was rather successful, but I couldn't move, punch, or work it like a Riddick Bowe. His right uppercut is artistry.

I agree with Absolutely! here. Bowe didn't take a true ass-kicking till Golota, but he took PLENTY of punishment prior. His wars with Holyfield, he got hit plenty by Nate Tubbs, by Coetzer, by Tillery, by Biggs...Any one isn't bad, but they add up when you are taking shots like that every time out, and in sparring. Riddick's brain was a speed bag.

 

Great info. I love the go for broke style at heavy.
What do you think of Bowe, Holy, or Tyson being
involved in amateur boxing training shaping the
US team for next Olympics. I was impressed by
this years Olympic teams pro debuts.

 

So aside from the Golota wars, when he was already past it, and the Holyfield fights, a fighter so good that he dealt out punishment to virtually every fighter he ever stepped in the ring with, who else put beatings on Riddick Bowe? Herbie Hide? He landed some shots. So what? Mercer and Bruno landed shots on Lewis. McCall and Rahman obviously landed shots on Lewis. Vitali, too. I think too much is made of Bowe supposedly shipping inordinate amount of punishment through his career. He got hit. A lot of great fighters did.

Who else put a beating on Bowe?

 

See post #27.

 

Coetzer? That was a horribly one sided ass kicking from start to finish. Horribly one-sided. Bowe was looking to finish the fight so of course he was going to get hit with something, but he thoroughly dominated. I don't accept that as an accurate example of what we're talking about here.

The thing is, nobody is doubting that Bowe's defence was standard, perhaps even sub-standard, but there's no way he declined as quick as he did as a result of fighting Coetzer, Biggs, and Holyfield. That's just not reality. Look at the shape he was in for the Holyfield rematch? The guy was lazy and unmotivated at that stage in his career.

Bowe, had he remained motivated and focused even after winning the title, could have achieved so much more in this sport. Look at a fighter like Holyfield, a guy who shipped a lot of punishment against standard opposition, and ask yourself why he didn't burn out? What's the difference? The difference is Holyfield's conditioning, motivation, and will to win was never in question.