Why did Bowe fight Ferguson and Dokes?

Twenty four ,"ham and eggers".

 

• Before Riddick Bowe defeated Evander Holyfield to win the Undisputed World Heavyweight Championship on November 13, 1992, he signed an agreement with the WBC to make his first title defense—if he should defeat Holyfield—against the winner of the title eliminator between Lewis and Ruddock. The WBC gave Bowe and Lewis until December 13 to reach an agreement or the fight would go to a purse bid. If Bowe refused to meet Lewis, the WBC title would be awarded to Lewis.
• Rock Newman, Bowe's manager, made two offers to Lewis. The first would have guaranteed Lewis $3 million, while giving Bowe 90% of the purse and Lewis 10%. The second offer was for Lewis to refuse the WBC title, have an interim fight in the United States for $2.5 million, and then fight Bowe for $9 million or a percentage to be negotiated. Frank Maloney, the manager of Lewis, rejected both offers and countered with his own proposal: a 75-25 percent split of the purse. Newman turned it down. Maloney later had a change of heart and agreed to the first offer, but Newman told him he was too late. Newman said a deal for Bowe to defend the title against an opponent other than Lewis was imminent.
• On December 14, 1992, Riddick Bowe held a news conference and dumped his WBC title into a garbage can. "If Lewis wants the belt, he has to get it out of the garbage," Bowe said. The WBC then declared Lennox Lewis the new WBC heavyweight champion.

Eddie Futch stated several times he did not want to put Bowe in with Lewis.

 

Bowe/Bruno would've been a very good and competitive scrap. Throw in Mercer, Morrison, or McCall and Bowe's resume actually looks fairly respectable. Fringe top 11-15 worthy.

All of those would've been VERY easy fights to make and reading through this thread, it's clear Bowe wasn't afraid of punchers. It was a combination of bad luck and HORRIBLE management that led to him having a pretty mediocre career failing to live up to his full potential.

 

Someone in the thread mentioned how Lewis was only offered 10% to fight Bowe. I would have been dragging my feet and complaining too if I was the #1 contender getting such a low ball number.

 

When a lie is repeated enough times it becomes a fact.
The 25% cut was set in stone for lewis as per the WBC rules for mandatory challengers..

 

Source?

 

The 10% was offered on the basis the fight would gross €30million. This important factor is always left out.
10% of that sum would've paid Lewis more than the €3 MILLION Bowe made in the same mandatory position against Holyfield. Lewis called a career high pay day absurd.
The negotiations were being made very difficult for Newman by design. King saw Newman as an outsider he could cheat and seal from, and he did. He got Lewis the title against a soup can for 10million as promised. Are you surprised boxing is dirty corrupt sport?

 

Several of those were from the Mike Tyson opponent playbook. Mike was 27-0 when he fought Berbick. Who did he beat to get the shot? Shopworn James Tillis? Marvis Frazier? Mitch Green? Jose Ribalta? If you want exalt those guys as above ham-and-eager status, then that means he fought 22 ham-and-eggers to get his title shot … and unlike Tyson, Dokes was a former champ with a lot better scalps on his past record.

In that 24-of-26 streak (with the only losses to Donovan Ruddock and Evander Holyfield, who went 2-2 against Tyson with the two losses being two of Mike’s most competitive wins), Dokes beat past Tyson victims Jesse Ferguson, Ribalta, Mike Jameson … oh, and a still-viable Tex Cobb.

Nobody is saying Dokes was deserving of mandatory status, but he’s nowhere near the bottom 25 percent of people who have ever gotten a heavyweight title shot (by resume he was more deserving than Tyson was when he fought Berbick).

Compare his 24 ham-and-eggers to the 0 hams, 0 eggs, 0 toast, not-even-a-biscuit resume of Pete Rademacher or dozens of others who were literally handed title shots for no reason.

 

LOL Eddie said he knew Bowe wouldn't beat Lewis as soon as he heard Bowe had put a refrigerator in his bedroom. Lennox always had Bowes number

 

Lennox may have had Bowe’s number, but Riddick had the passcode to open that fridge in his bedroom. So he had the last laugh … along with the last slice of pizza, scoop of ice cream and last four two-liter Pepsis to wash it all down.

 

Pointing out others fought equally innocuous opponents, doesn't make Dokes ' ones any more dangerous.I've no problem with that gimmeee fight.lets just not make more of it than it deserves.

 

ham, toast, biscuits, no wonder Patterson was known as a “cheese” champion.

 

25% is still pretty low for the #1 contender, especially a guy like Lennox Lewis who was a Major Force in the division.

Why the hell would Lennox agree to 10% even if it was in the event the fight does 30 million? It was a bad deal. Bowe's team KNEW they would reject the offer but did it anyways so they could pretend they tried to make the fight happen. They then literally threw the belt away. No matter what mental gymnastics you use, Bowe ducked Lewis.

 

25% is exactly the same cut Bowe got against Holyfield and is the exact same cut every mandatory challenger has gotten since. Neither Bowe or anyone since has ever complained about mandatory percentage splits.

No , Lewis was not a major force in the division. Revinisonst nonsense. He valued himself far more than he was worth and was playing hardball.
Some guys will say yes to everything , Lewis was not one of those guys.

Example

He took step aside money from Mike Tyson in 1996. He could have refused. He could have took Tyson to court to force the fight.

Afterall ,he tried suing Tysons ghost into a rematch in 2002.

While Tyson still had a PULSE , Lewis was happy to take step aside money. That tells you all you need to know about his mentality. Did you know he was stripped of every belt he ever won?

Going back to the negotiations , the 10% cut out of a speculated $30 million dollar fight was just one of stage of the back and forth negotiation process. The fight wasn't worth that . It was thrown out there at the time and forgotten about soon after ,but is the go-to argument for people who know nothing else

At one stage Maloney told Newman they would have to come up with more than the $10 million King was offering Lewis to face Tony Tuker . This is a fac but nobody ever mentions it.
These sort of low ball offers were going back and forth for a long time , on both sides.

Naturally Newman got frustrated because as he put it , Lewis was acting like the champ dictating terms to the challenger.

Lewis was happy for Don King who was in cahoots the WBC to cheat and lowball Newman into giving up the belt.

This is all fact and whatever retort you have is just poorly researched talking points. Educate yourself.

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Where has anyone made much out of it.

Dokes was qualified for a title shot. More qualified than many who came before or after. Also not nearly as qualified as many who came before or after.

But to single him out as if he was completely unqualified and make it seem like an egregious example of someone undeserving getting a shot is intellectually dishonest.