Riddick Bowe has the better single win out of the two beating an undefeated Evander Holyfield, but outside of that he never really tested himself against the best of the 90s. I think Tyson Fury may have the edge overall but what do you guys think ?
He has Holyfield Coetzer Dokes Tubbs Biggs Hide Fury has Whyte Wilder Chisora Cunninghman Gotta go Bowe for resume.
The thing is though you have to take into account the context of some of those wins. Tubbs, Dokes, Biggs, had seen better days when Bowe fought them. Remember Bowe wasn't fighting the 80's versions of them, although i do agree that they overall rate higher than Whyte, Cunningham, Chisora, at Heavyweight.
I was thinking of that myself, and did exclude people due to age. I decided to include those guys as they were all under 34, but yeah, definitely their ages should be noted. I just don't rate Wilder/Chisora or Cunningham at HW highly at all.
Bowe's win over a prime Holyfield is individually a better win than anything Fury has. With that being said, i rank Fury higher. IMO Fury has more depth in his resume with wins over Wilder, old Wlad, Chisora (prime), Wallin, Whyte etc. Bowe somehow missed fighting Lewis, Mercer, Morrison, Tyson, Rudock, Witherspoon, etc. I know some of these aren't his fault but his resume is so shallow outside of his Holyfield win. The two major threats that Fury has not faced so far are Usyk and Joshua but he wil likely face them. Bowe simply missed fighting too many top guys and was an enormous underachiever. Bowe has the better single win; Fury has more depth.
Bowe avoided Lewis, Tyson, Mercer, Foreman and several others. If he fought during the past decade, he would probably have avoided big punchers like Wilder and Klitschko. His 3 wins over smaller men like Holyfield and Hide are not as good as Fury's best three wins: Klitschko, Wilder X 2.
While i agre that Bowe ducked Lewis and that Fury should rank higher, i am not sure if you can accuse Bowe of avoiding Foreman. Comeback George was extremely careful in his opponent selection. Its Fury's wins over guys like Chisora and Wallin that give him the edge IMO. Just more depth.
Bowe was a talented fighter, but basically just a bully. didnt fight any of the top men of the 90s apart from holyfield and that was a great win but look at all he avoided. he fought hide because hide was also a cruiserweight. or even 2nd tier like morrison, ruddock, mercer, bruno, mccall and when he did fight golota he was apparently shot. so he fought one true prime hw and then labelled shot.
Evander was in the best of the nineties though and Bowe fought him three times. So...I mean, I know what you mean but at the same time...
Are we seriously giving credit to Bowe for beating Biggs? Biggs was a joke at that time when he fought Bowe. Guys like Chisora and Wallin would destroy that version of Biggs.
Right now I'd say Bowe, he for one was undisputed unlike Fury and his 2 wins over Evander are clearly better than any win on Fury's resume. If Fury beats Joshua then he gets a lot closer to Bowe in terms of resume and then add a win over Usyk and I would clearly rank Fury over Bowe. Fury's career isn't over yet, in the end I suspect he will rank higher than Bowe, he just needs the time and the fights to prove it.
