If lennox Lewis and riddick bowe fought when they were supposed to

Nice write up.

 

Bowe more proven and complete fight at this point. As he wasn't the
erratic version a few years later. Bowe would be motivated and had
genuine hate for Lewis. Lewis was no where near the fighter he was
later. Bowe stops Lewis in 8 if fought in 92.

 

IMO lack of confidence is an ability killer. If you can't throw with authority then you can't fight your fight - Lennox by mid round stoppage.

 

Interesting. Never read that. It would have been a fascinating matchup in terms of skills, size and power. They were both just entering their primes. In reality it should have been a series of fights.

 

I think Bowe had confidence in his ability but he was a little fearful of Lewis also with the memory or the Olympic Games. Once the fight started though I think talent and ability and training take over. Shame we never got this fight.

 

For sure, could have potentially been a trilogy.

 

Nice find but it would be more concrete if we heard it directly from Futch.

In court, this would qualify as hearsay.

 

Regardress of whether this is true or not, how many people rank Bowe ahead of either fighter. That's my point.

 

It'll do me over us armchair critics.

More than happy to take a man such as Emanuel Steward at his word.

 

You're asking for technical analysis when you yourself can only infer a Bowe KO victory from Lewis' TKO/KO losses and some vague reference to Lewis getting into exchanges. This more or less reduces Bowe's likelihood of victory to a puncher's chance, helped by the hope that Lewis would have walked headlong into one of Bowe's right hands.

I suspect this narrow perspective could be applied to just about any Heavyweight contest. That's closer to taking a 'punt' than an "educated guess", in my opinion. I also find it interesting that you refer to Bowe peaking in early '93, which is possible but it's a conclusion, which can only have been derived from his knocking out a couple of opponents, who were nowhere near world class, following Holyfield I.

Dokes' world title days were 10 years behind him and he was on his last legs. Ferguson? This match-up was far, far worse. A guy who'd never had any world title days or had held any other level title, for that matter - nor would he, ever.

So that was peak Bowe - who would then lose to Holyfield. by close of '93.


I don't think Lewis would have entered into a Bowe bout with the type of complacency he demonstrated in his losses (and some of his victories). I don't think Bowe would get any concussive blows off on Lewis, who had already demonstrated that, when he was 'fully-non-complacent', could use effective caution at a distance, against Ruddock.

Combine this with Bowe being quite easy to hit (even modestly skilled Golota, over the course of their two bouts, outlanded Bowe on average by almost 2-1. Hide was outlanding Bowe, by a 50% margin) and I strongly suspect that Lewis finds Bowe a fairly easy target, over 12 rounds.

I think Lewis would comfortably outpoint Bowe. Bowe, on the other hand, would need the stoppage win and most likely be the one having to take chances to chase the KO.

 

If holyfield face lewis instead bowe in 93 what would happen?

I think holyfield will win.

But maybe this mental/confident problem for bowe. I don't know.

 

Well, I give you kudos for offering a technical explanation, one other than "Bowe was scared." and/or "Lewis beat him in the ameteurs."

I did say that '92-94 Lewis wasn't much of a mover and dropped his hands, making him vulnerable to the straight righ hand, which was Bowe's best punch or second best after the jab.

Yes, Ferguson and Dokes were joke defenses, but Bowe ended each in less than one round as he should have. Also, remember, Bowe would have likely defended against Mercer, but Ray blew it when he lost to Ferguson. And Bowe did beat a peak Holyfield, which as I pointed out, was a better win than anything Lewis ever had.

He had just won an incredible war over Holyfield. Newman saw big $$$ for little risk. Going in with Lewis right after a brutal war with Holyfield was risky. Bowe should have faced Lewis after that but now we're talking unification and those were never easy to make unless D King controls both fighters. Meanwhile, in '93 Lewis was going life and death with Frank Bruno and taking eight rounds to stop very limited Phil Jackson. A great matchup was certainly lost.

 

There quite probably was a psychological component involved in why Bowe didn't go through with his WBC mandatory showdown with Lewis but that's a 'maybe'.

I am not sure I'd highlight Lewis dropping his hands as a consistent feature of his work, at the time. If he wasn't much of a mover, then he appeared to be more than able to control distance and do so with fast footwork; something afforded to him by his coming in a more trim sub-240, in those days.

This keeping the distance would have driven Bowe nuts, in my opinion. Bowe liked to shorten his punches and needed to close the distance to do so. His right, whilst very good, was unconventional; not all that straight; shorter as a result; often looping and pushed over the top. I don't see it as his magic bullet against Lewis; especially, when Lewis had a straighter, longer and as powerful a right hand (a better Jab and Left-Hook too, I'd say).

Neither the reasons why the bout didn't happen nor who has the best win on their resume are the point of the thread, as far as I can tell. It's really a speculative matter of who we think would most likely have won between Lewis and Bowe in '93.

One corrective point - - - Lewis battered Tucker, over 12, in early '93; Bruno later the same year - - - the Jackson bout came the following year. Also - using the term "life and death" to describe Lewis/Bruno seems a bit over the top to describe a competitive bout, in which Bruno showed a good game plan and used the ability he'd always had (Bruno was very underrated, in my opinion). The only guy to get Bruno out of there any quicker, was Mike Tyson.

Bowe's one great win doesn't make him an automatic favorite against Lewis, in my book. Lewis like Bowe was at his physical prime back then, but technically unfinished. He did, however, have enough in his armory to have frustrated Bowe and, whilst it was a great match-up on paper, I think we'd have seen a drawn out, 12-round chess match, with Bowe coming off a lot worse by the end of it.

 

I don't think Lewis had the jab that he would develop later. He tended to paw with it and his balance was suspect especily compared to the more polished version later. Bowe was a two handed fighter. He could/would outjab Lewis while pressing the fight