Critical look at Rid**** Bowe

Rid**** Bowe is one of the most enigmatic heavyweights out there when it comes to head to head ability. This thead is a critical look on his performance against various opposition throughout his career.

His career as a boxer is defined by one great win that glaringly stands out among all others. He handed Evander Holyfield his first loss in a bout that wasn't even particularly competitive, rocking him senselessly and winning a lop-sided decision. This single win, when considering the dominance should put him high up on any head to head list, right?

Well, lets look at Holyfield. Evander had just grown into the heavyweight division, weighing a mere 205 pounds coming into the fight with Bowe.
His strategy was to attack like a bull and get his opponent out of there, because hey, it was paying the bills.

Bowe, standing 6'5'' and 235 pounds, had little trouble manhandling the much smaller Holyfield, putting him in line for a devastating array of surprisingly effective inside hooks and uppercuts. Bowe had GREAT in-fighting abilities for a man his size. Holyfield tried to slug, and he was outslugged. Left with no plan B, he was attacking vigorously but to no avail. He fought Bowes fight and lost.

In the rematch, he was bigger, weighing 217 pounds, with Emanuel Steward in his corner forging a master strategy. Carefully picking his shots and attacking intelligently behind a quick jab, Holyfield boxed, and he won.

****yzing this material, I've pinned a few glaring weaknesses that should be considered when it comes to Bowe in H2H match-ups.

1. Defense and chin

Bowes defense was his offense. The man had blurred speech after 2 fights. He liked to slug a bit too much. Holyfield had rocked Bowe quite a bit in their encounters, even dropping him. Now the thing with Holyfield was, he didn't have genuine heavyweight power at that point. His counters were surprisingly sharp and his combinations were quick and punishing, but he was no Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis or Razor Ruddock.

Bowe had few elite punchers on his resume, and for a reason -- he was battered from pillar to post by the one superheavyweight he ever fought, Golota. He didn't respond well to the punches of Herbie Hide. He avoided Lennox Lewis who stopped him in the amateurs. He was knocked down twice by Aleksandr Miroshnichenko in the Olympics.

Bowe didn't have the best of chins, and his lack of defense hurt him even more in this regard.

2. Giving up size (not fighting tall)

Bowe admitted, after his fight with Golota that he was perplexed fighting a man his size with a good jab.

Bowe, who had the physical dimensions to fight like a giant, never learned how to properly. He had a good jab which he underused 100% of the time and he had trouble against the few boxers he fought, most notably Tyrell Biggs and Tony Tubbs who both were extremely competitive on the scorecards.


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Considering all this, I think one should take into consideration that Bowes fights with Holyfield aren't representative of his true capabilites against all styles and types. The glimpses of him fighting elite punchers and boxers show a much more vulnerable fighter that Evander might have not been able to expose all by himself. Rid**** was still great, but no fighter gets a pass due to only one fight and he should be no exception.