Critical look at Rid**** Bowe

Before he even became champion, Bowe defeated Lionel Butler (who went on to KO Tubbs), Pinklon Thomas (former WBA champ), an in-shape Bert Cooper, Tyrell Biggs (former gold medalist), Tony Tubbs (former WBA champ), Bruce Seldon (future WBA champ), and Pierre Coetzer.

He beat Holy in an ATG fight, then former WBA champ Michael Dokes (who was on a 9-fight win streak), and Jessie Ferguson (who was coming off winning every round against former Olympic gold medalist Ray Mercer).

He loses a majority decision to Holyfield (watching it live I thought it was a draw) Jerry Roth 113-115, Patricia Morse Jarman 114-115, Chuck Giampa 114-114, after fan man causes a 20-minute break - which arguably could have caused it to be ruled a no contest. No shame in getting barely eeked by a great fighter.

He stopped then undefeated Buster Mathis, Jr. though it was ruled no contest because he hit him immediately after the low ducking Mathis took a knee.

He defeated then undefeated Larry Donald, who had been the U.S. Olympic representative.

He then beat undefeated 26-0, 25 KOs WBO champ Herbie Hide, a guy who could really punch. Hide was coming off a very impressive KO7 over Michael Benntt, putting Benntt in the hospital with brain injuries. Benntt had just knocked out Tommy Morrison.

Bowe also defeated then undefeated former Cuban amateur champion Jorge Luis Gonzalez (who held wins over both Bowe and Lewis in the amateurs).

That's four undefeated fighters in a row.

Next fight is the exciting war with Holyfiled, becoming the first man to stop Holyfield. Bowe also shows that he can get up from a knockdown to win.

Then he fights yet another undefeated fighter in Andrew Golota, and beats him twice, in the process enduring brutal blows to the head and body, knockdowns, as well as punishing low blows, head butts, rabbit punches, and just about every foul imaginable, but still fights hard and lands enough significant blows to cause Golota to lose his head and foul out not once but twice.

 

And gets a pass by some for one of the most blatant ducks of his No. 1 contender ever...in the same ball park in "ducking" terms as Ali's avoidance of Norton after Yankee Stadium in '76.

 

I'll play con here.

Tubbs vs Bowe was a very close fight! I thought Bowe edged it.

Buster Mathis jr was perhaps the weakest puncher to ever fight Bowe

Bowe looked slow and did not show much vs Donald. Donald just ran

Golota fought very dirty, but many feel Bowe " Faked " low blow damage. I can't stand Golota, and I want to point out he never won a big fight in his life yet he badly exposed Bowe on many levels hitting and hurting him with legal shots with shocking ease.

Thomas was faded. Coetzer not very good. Seldon looked like Tarzan but took a punch like Jane.

Bowe deserves a lot of credit for the Holyfield fights, the Hide win, and to an extend the Gonzalez win. But he sure missed out on a lot of fights vs. Lewis, Morrison, Moorer, Foreman, Holmes, Tyson, Ruddock, McCall, Ibeabuchi, Tua, Mercer....pertty much everyone you would list in the top 10 of the 1990's aside from Holyfield. Why is the question?

 

Bowe ducking Lewis is a bit overstated. As we all know, boxing is a business, and big mega fights tend to get built up over time into something bigger, and the sides have to haggle over who gets what share of the pie. Both realize they can make good money on their own, and often different promoters and networks are involved.

Bowe won the title in November 1992. Rock Newman was not going to fight Lewis the next fight after Bowe beat Holy in a war. So he took a couple easier paydays en route to the mega fight with Lewis. It made more economic sense and competitive sense to do another fight with Holyfield, particularly after their first fight was so wonderful, and let's face it, the boxing public and general public liked, admired, knew, and related to Holyfield more than Lewis. My guess is Lewis would have happened eventually. But then Bowe lost his titles and the decision to Holyfield in November 1993. Bowe had been champion for one year.

Lewis beat Ruddock just before Bowe beat Holy, but that was his one big fight, against a guy who had been beaten up badly by Tyson. Lewis garnered some momentum with his subsequent victories over Tucker and Bruno, but like I said, Bowe then went and lost, which hurt the economic value of that big fight.

The following year, in 1994 Lewis beats Phil Jackson, and then gets stopped in 2 rounds by Oliver McCall. So the potential mega-fight's value plummeted even further.

Both guys got built back up again, Bowe eventually got a WBO belt, KO'd Holyfield, but by mid- '96 Bowe was getting his career wrecked by the Golota fights. Lewis won the vacant WBC belt in 1997, when he rematched McCall and avenged his loss.

So we really aren't talking a huge window of time here where that fight would have made perfect sense economically for both sides. Sadly, it just wasn't in the cards. But boo hoo, we got three wonderful fights between Bowe and Holyfield, among other things.

 

Yes, BUT the Buster Mathis and Jessie Ferguson title fights were jokes. Much better opponents could have been selected.

Bowe and Lewis could have been made, remember Bowe threw the belt in the trash rather than face Lewis.

In the end Bowe fought but 1 of the top 10 best fighters ( Holyfield )of the 1990's, and in hindsight cherry picked some guys that were easy to stop, couldn't punch while avoided punchers for opponents in general.

 

Bowe beat Holy in an all-time great fight, defended against Dokes (a former champ) and Ferguson, who was coming off a clear victory over Mercer, a guy you just criticized Bowe for not facing. Then he gave a rematch to Holyfield. All within one year. Not too bad.

History has often proven that big fights between the two best guys in the division take time to get made.

Joe Louis won the title in June 1937. He didn't rematch the number one contender, Max Schmeling, who had knocked him out, until June 1938.

Tyson beat Berbick in November 1986 for the WBC title. He didn't fight the linear champion Michael Spinks until June 1988.

Economics. Making big fights time it takes. Reality.

 

Adam, I respect your vast knowledge of boxing history so I;m sure you remember that the Lewis-Ruddock & Bowe-Holy fights in the Autumn of'92 were billed/promoted/viewed as semi-finals with the winners to fight each other. Therefore, it absolutely was on the cards, it did not happen, purely because Bowe and/or Newman reneged.

Bowe had the belts, he was in control - he claimed he wanted to fight Lewis. Lewis wanted the belts, so all Bowe had to do was wait for Lewis to come to him & Lewis would have had to fight Bowe in order to get the title...so what did Bowe do? He gave up the belt for which Lewis was the mandatory.

And still some claim it was not a duck? For those who claim it was not a duck, it was an "Emporer's new clothes" moment, and massively significant when providing a critique of Bowe in a historical context.

 

Mendoza - sorry to appear pedantic but the Mathis fight wasn't a title fight? Dokes was iirc; but you are right with your sentiment that they were poor title defences - and that was a view widely held at the time...they were mismatches.

 

Joe Louis did not win the title in June 1936 - but June 37.

June 36 was when Louis was kayoed by Schmeling.

 

I remember those 2nd and 3rd Bowe Holyfield fights were on ITV in the UK which was unheard of even then, Bruno vs Witherspoon in 86 and Tyson 1 in 89 were ppv. Got to thank Bowe for that because it was him or Newman who okayed it, who can forget the dude on the para-glider.

 

"billed/promoted/viewed as semi-finals with the winners to fight each other."

According to who? The WBC? I don't recall that. I know Lewis was seen as the next best guy, true, but not that Bowe had any definitive obligation to fight him in his very next fight, other than because an alphabet soup organization said so. That means zippo in modern day boxing with a gazillion belts. What matters is dollars and sense.

Woopsie on the Louis timeline -but the point is the same - it takes time. It still took Louis a year to fight Schmeling - when it was Schmeling who based on merit actually deserved the title shot against Braddock.

How many champions didn't defend at all for a year after winning their titles? Many.

How many heavyweight champions in history defended against the next best guy out there in their very next fight after winning the championship? Very rare.

So why are we holding Bowe to some new standard?

Very rarely do fighters do back to back mega fights. You don't do a war with Holyfield and then fight Lewis in your next fight. It would have been great, but I also live in the real world where that isn't how it usually happens.

Joe Frazier doesn't beat Ali and then fight Foreman in his very next fight. Think about it.

 

Let's face it, there are only two types of men that will beat Bowe

1) those who hit hard enough to knock him out, whilst being durable enough to survive an exchange on the inside with Bowe.

2) athletes who are able to move quick enough in and out of range and land point scoring shots.

How many people could do the former? Tyson, Liston, Louis, Foreman, Lewis and maybe Vitali. How many could do the latter? Ali, Holmes, Holyfield?

I think we're looking at a maximum of 9 men in the whole history of pre fighting that I would favour over him.

When you look at other great in fighters like Frazier, Dempsey and Rocky, I see no way they can survive the storm. The only other great hitter worth mentioning is Wlad and he is no where near durable enough. Athletic boxers are limited to the likes of Moorer, Patterson, Charles, Walcott, Tunney and Johnson and does anyone seriously see those emerging victorious? Maybe Tunney or Charles but they'd have to seriously ride their luck.

So all in all were talking if Bowe being in the top 0.00001% of professional boxers and with that in mind we have to say he's a great h2h fighter.

 

Also, any good manager knows you don't put your fighter in there in a tough fight right in his next fight after a war. That is how you shorten careers and cause brain damage. The Holyfield fight was brutal. The Lewis fight would have been brutal. Was it so awful that Bowe took two easier title defenses, and a year after winning the title rematched Holyfield? I say that is consistent with boxing tradition. Look at Floyd Patterson, Ingemar Johansson, heck even Muhammad Ali after he won the title. A year off and then rematch with guy they beat for the title. Liston did the same with Patterson. Then another year off before Clay. Newman's biggest mistake was taking the Golota fight after the brutal third Holyfield fight. After a brain damage fight like that, where your fighter got rocked badly, he should have given him a tomato can. And after he eeked the dq over Golota and got brutalized, he probably should not have done the rematch. What is entertaining for the fan is also what shortens careers and causes debilitating brain damage. So yeah, you wait for a Lewis fight to become huge, so that way when your fighter emerges damaged, he's got a huge pile of money at least. Bowe - Lewis was not going to be a huge fight in 1993. It would have and could been a huge megafight in 1994 if all had worked out, which it didn't.

 

Bowe was good, very good... but he was lazy.

He remains 1 out of only 3 Lineal HW Champs who were never stopped... Tunney and Marciano are the other two. A few HW World title holders were never stopped like Valuev, Ibragimov, and Toney (if you count him as a former WBA Champ).

As for Holyfield, he was 28-0 (22) overall, 10-0 (7) in World Title Fights, 5-0 (2) vs. Hall of Famers, and 30 years old when he fought Bowe in 1992 (their first fight). Holyfield had weighed 212 Lbs. (first Alex Stewart fight, he actually weighed 212 for their rematch as well) and he weighed between 208 and 210 Lbs. for his HW World Title fights prior to Bowe. Vs. Bowe he did weigh 205 but it was his lowest weight in over 4 years.

Holyfield took Bowe lightly. He actually made Bowe quit in a sparring session and didn't think too much of him as a serious HW title threat.

 

I liked Bowe and think he would have had a good shot at beating Lewis in the 1992/1994 time frame, but I am fairly certain Lewis became the WBC #1 contender when he beat Razor Ruddock, and Bowe dumped the WBC title in the trash and was stripped for not agreeing to fight Lewis, or vacated it voluntarily. He kept the other titles, WBA and IBF, which he then defended against Dokes and Ferguson. By letting himself get stripped and then fighting a shot Dokes and a mediocre Ferguson (yes, Ferguson did beat an out of shape Mercer in the infamous "Bribe" fight, but experts at the time thought it was more a matter of Mercer looking like ****, rather than Ferguson shining), Bowe gave the appearance that he was ducking Lewis. I agree that his manager Rock Newman, was trying to get some easy money fights, before fighting tougher competition. A rematch with Holyfield made sense economically. I think Bowe got more $ for that fight, then he could have gotten against Lewis.