Holyfield's tactics vs Bowe 1: why so totally wrong ?

He liked to fight, and push himself to the limit.
Warriors mentality. Sometimes it clouded his judgement. As soon as he gets hit, he wants to return it ten fold.

 

Bowe's heart and stamna were still being questioned.
Holyfield had sparred with Bowe in the past. I guess he underestimated how much Bowe had improved and how much Bowe wanted it.

 

Up to the Bowe fight, Holyfield in his heavyweight bouts had weighed around 210 pounds, give or take a few pounds and showed that he was able, like in his dominant cruiserweight days, able to not only beat his opponents by workrate and punch variety but able to match strength and power with them as well. Against Bowe, his camp had him deliberately come in at a lower weight, around 204/205 pounds to be more mobile and have more speed against the far bigger heavier Bowe. However, once the bout began, Bowe proved a lot better than they remembered and it seemed Holyfield’s pride and mentality soon had him falling back on trying to match his opponents strength and overwhelm them with his own power and strength. A mistake against the bigger, harder hitting and surprisingly durable Bowe especially on the inside. Maybe one of the occasions where the old adage that a good big ‘un will always/eventually beat a good little ‘un applied.

 

imagine this holyfield vs Prime 70's foreman.

with this holyfield's tactic

 

I think it goes back to the sparring thing. Evander was supposed to have had good success with the guy. So he did not go into the bout with the same intensity like he had in his 4 previous opponents---Douglas/Foreman/Holmes/Cooper. He was pretty sharp except for the Cooper bout.
He was also due for a letdown after fighting that level of competition. And Evander's trainer Benton did not like how the bout was transpiring---but it is and was always hard for trainers to get much done when Lou Duva was in the corner. Lou was always the elephant in the room.

 

Holyfield (bless him) simply could not resist a brawl. He had such great technical skills but he couldn't help himself, he was attracted to a slugfest like iron filings to a rare earth magnet. I still remember the Bobby Czyz fight, where Czyz was having unexpected success at outboxing Holyfield. Holy was trying to take his head off with every punch and his corner was dumping on him for it. "What you loading up for? You don't have to load up for this guy" and Holy was "I know, I know." Ten seconds later he goes out and loads up again, lol.

 

Or maybe Bowe had slid more in their second bout than Evander did, Holyfield did plenty of slugging in the second bout.

 

Bowe wasn't exactly hard to hit himself

 

Some fighters get hit and see red .. Dempsey famously, Holyfield another .. that said it was a very close , brutal fight and the fact that Holyfield did so well against the undisputed best Bowe ever while not fighting the smartest fight shows how physically tough he was .. whatever Holyfield likely took drugwise to go up in weight did not add to his incredible chin and heart ..

 

The premise of the thread is aided by a lot of hindsight.
Holyfield gave Bowe hell, and Bowe exceeded just about all expectations. It's easy to say he got it "totally wrong" because he lost, but Bowe fought a remarkable fight to not wilt from Holyfield's pressure.

 

Yes, that's true.
And the third fight too.

 

From what he said at the time the plan was to outbox Bowe & use his mobility, hence he came in even lighter than usual. The first round was the blueprint, then in the second round ( I think ) Bowe either hit him low or on the break & in Holyfield's own words he lost his temper & a bar brawl broke out & the rest is history.