Deontay Wilder vs Riddick Bowe?

To be fair, Bowe was never an outside boxing master. On the other hand, Wilder's outside game is very flawed so I would expect an explosive fight. A young, hungry version of Bowe probably takes Wilder out inside 6. An older version of Bowe probably loses.

 

Not sure what the point of this post was, but all you did was highlight how Newman low balled Lewis with offers below his actual market value.

Why take $3 mill for Bowe when Lewis would make $9.1 mill vs Tucker and $8 mill vs Bruno? Even the $2.5 mill offer and then a $9 mill offer to fight was weak, when you consider that's $5.6 mill or 33% less than what he would make. Offering someone 33% less than they are worth is a low ball offer, especially when you consider the Bowe fight was bigger than Tucker or Bruno.

75-25 split is also a low ball offer. Look at the recent negotiations with AJ/Wilder and AJ/Parker numbers being thrown around were between 60/40 or 70/30 and these guys were far smaller draws, while Lewis made more than Bowe in his next to fights, yet 75/25 is reasonable?

When Bowe had lost the belt and Lewis was WBC champion and they signed to fight in 94 for a fight in 95 did they offer him $3 mill or a 2 fight deal to delay a fight or 75/25, nope Lewis offered him $13 mill while Lewis got $18 mill that's a 58/42 split, that's right 42% for Bowe to make a fight when he had no belt, yet Lewis with a belt was worth only 25% when Bowe was champion? Pretty clear who really wanted the fight most when they had something to lose.

 

Bowe based on the fact that Wilder can`t box.

 

Exactly.. Why take $3m against Bowe and take a loss when you can make $9.1m and take a win.

The $3m represented Lewis' mandatory 25% split. It was the exact same figure and percentage that Bowe got when he was in the same position going into the Holyfield fight.
Lewis was pricing himself out , rejecting fair offers and making unreasonable demands left right and center.

In 1992 Lewis was not worth anywhere close to $10m per fight. He was a moderately known common wealth champion who was in no position to be making demands and turning down fair offers.

It infuriated Rock Newman to be dictated to by the challenger who was being backed up by the WBC and Don King.
Lewis and his handlers didn't make that situation easy so they are as much to blame as Newman was. They knew lowballing and back- handing Newman would force him to relinquish the WBC belt. The offer was still there for Lewis to fight the champ for the other two belts , but he was only to happy to fight Tucker for a fortune instead.

It was a good business decision and Lewis proved over the course of his career that he was a much better business man than Riddick Bowe and Rock Newman. He also knew how to get the media on his side which is why so many people believed it was just a simple case of Bowe throwing away the belt because he was too afraid to fight. That narrative is for the uninformed.

Absurd. Its exactly what he was worth as the mandatory challenger and its exactly what Bowe accepted when he fought Holyfield.
Why would Rock Newman pay Lewis more than Bowe when he was in the same position ?? Both Wilder and Parker were champions , Lewis was just a mandatory challenger and if he really wanted to fight Bowe , he would have accepted the the split that EVERY mandatory challenger receives.
If he really believed he could beat Bowe , he would have signed the first offer that was given to him , instead he rejected them all and waited for the WBC belt to became vacant so he could fight for it in a gimmie for a huge paycheck.
Only reason he made that money against Tucker is because Don King bid a stupid amount of money during the purse bids.
It wasn't representative of Lewis' worth or market share. People mistakenly believe Lewis of 92 had the same fame and worth as he did during the latter half of his career.

Bowe being afraid to fight Lewis was a lie made up by Lewis' PR team and by Lewis himself who always played the victim acting like nobody wanted to fight him.

He played out the same negotiations tactics in 1996 against Tyson when he got another vacant belt in the courts instead of in the ring.
He willingly took the step aside money , but if he really wanted to fight Tyson , he would have forced the fight through the courts like he tried to do in 2003 when Tyson was a broken down shell of his former self.

 

Wilder has a chance. His right hand is lethal, and Bowe's defense was terrible.

 

Bowe by disastrous KO.

 

Dino I love your logic you add 1 + 1 and get potato, lmao.

Lewis wasn't worth $9.1 mill you say, maybe not, maybe King over paid to try and secure a belt, but then Lewis made $8 mill vs Bruno, yet Lewis should take $3 mill? And that $3 mill offer wasn't a 25% mandatory split, it was 8.5% of the total split as the total purse was $35 mill.

Bowe himself made $7 mill vs Dokes and Ferguson, less than Lewis was making at the same time. Fact is neither could make as much without the other. Bowe's $3 mill offer would of seen him make $32 mill himself, instead he fought Evander in a rematch for $11 mill while Evander got $9 mill. Why was Lewis only worth $3 mill in a fight that was worth more but Evander was worth 3 times as much or 45% in a fight that made less?

You can say Lewis wasn't worth $10 mill but fact is he was making close to that at the time and making more than Bowe. Was Bowe worth the $32 mill he would make from the offer? Bowe never made that much for one fight, not even close to that much.

How was Lewis low balling he wasn't offering Bowe 8.5% of the purse like Bowe and Newman? And Lewis never asked for more than Bowe when he was the challenger, when is asking for more than 8.5% or even the 25% asking for more than Bowe when Bowe was getting 91.5% or 75%, do you even math Dino?

If Bowe really believed he could beat Lewis why didn't he offer more than 25%, why is the onus on the challenger to accept less money for a bigger fight than what he would get for fighting Tucker and Bruno? Did Bowe agree to being paid peanuts when he challenged Evander? Obviously not he got 37.5% then, why does Lewis deserve so much less in a fight worth more than 4 times as much? Did Bowe agree to $3 mill when he did eventually sign to fight Lewis in 94, nope he agreed to $13 mill, more than 4 times what Bowe was willing to pay Lewis in the same situation.

 

Wilder by Golota-like windmill punch to the nuts...

 

His worth obviously increased after he became a champion with one title defense under his belt.

Yeah , he most definitely should have taken the $3m offer just as Bowe did before him if he was set on becoming the undisputed champion.
He knew he wasn't ready and was too raw for Bowe at the stage which his why he rejected the offer.

Plus , the purse of the fight being $34M is just speculation. Whatever the fight made , he was guaranteed a 25% cut from it.

$3M was his best pay check to date.. He had no incentive to fight Bowe since he was being lined up with a better paying fight against Tucker behind the scenes.

The onus was on the mandatory challenger to adhere to the rules instead of dictating terms and making demands.

Frank even used the Tucker pay day as a means to blackmail a better deal from Newman

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Issuing threats like that as a challenger is pretty much admitting that they wanted to go in another direction.

 

bowe is overated
he had a prime of 2 fights
v holyfield
he picked the softest /least powerful /oldest and least dangerous fighters throughout his career on the way up and down

not his fault IMO but newmans

bowe legacy despite dinos defense of him is heavily tarnished by putting his belt in the bin rather than fight lewis.

as to bowe v wilder / its a toss up
wilder has hardly faced any punchers at all in 40 fights at heavy
and wilder still makes huge mistakes leaving himself off balance when teeing off
he would get dropped by bowe if he did that

but wilder speed and power could mean he would be very dangerous for bowe
galota was heavy handed but not a bone cruncher
holyfield /same
gonzales was poor
dokes/jesse ferguson were derek chisroh types
the south african whose name i forget who bowe beat to get a title shot again the same face first plodder with no power .
hide was fast but too small and had a china chin

if you compare bowes career to wilder it is only holyfield that seperates them and holyfield in the first fight was only a crusierweight / i think from memory he weighed 203lb

bowe was a much more rounded fighter than wilder/ better in all aspects of the game / except speed and power and that gives wilder a good chance v a good fighter in bowe but one who might fight wilder in poor shape.

bowe was not a reliable fighter / at least wilder is always in tip top shape

bowe was like tyson fury / he blew up in between fights.

 

Riddick Bowe isn't an All Time Great obviously and is somewhat overrated but he has 2 elite wins against prime Holyfield and 1 world level win against Herbie Hide. Both those wins **** all over everything Wilder has ever done and Bowe would press the action, outbox Wilder, get wilder in the corner and brutalize and manhandle him until the inevitable KO just like he did against Gonzalez

 

A prime Bowe would beat Wilder worse than Fury beat Wilder in their second bout. Bowe is a better boxer than Fury despite what the casuals will tell you. Bowe could take a punch better and was a much harder puncher than Fury. Wilder would get stopped in less than 3 rounds.