How good could Riddick Bowe have become?

We'll never know, and it's his own fault.

Let his reputation languish where it deserves to - at what he actually proved, not what it might've been in a fantasy world.

Sick and tired lately of fighters getting reputations far beyond what they dared to try and prove.
I know it's always been that way to a certain extent, but seeing frauds exposed and fans just move on to the next unproven hypejob is disheartening - lessons well and truly not learned.

As fans, we need to stop hyping up guys who refuse to provide us proof - otherwise we're complicit in the continued cycle of over protected fighters making baseless claims to greatness.

 

Impossible to say. Lack of self discipline was only half his problem, he always took far too many punches as his defence was porous and that was in part just as responsible for his early decline as his lack of discipline. Just look at Fury he's just as bad as Bowe in terms of managing his weight and even worse in regards to abusing his body with drink and drugs, but unlike Bowe he was able to slip a punch and maintain distance when needed and so garnered some of his best wins into his 30's when Bowe was done by 28.

There's also the fact his team protected him from the moment he won the tittles, so even if he had been fit and focused throughout his career he may not have achieved much more than he did. He might have beaten Evander in the rematch, but there's no guarantee he would of fought better opposition. He'd have likely been stripped of most if not all the belts if he continued to duck his biggest threats and again retired with a question mark over him as he'd have never fought anyone regarded as great beyond the much smaller Holyfield.

 

I only remember him for throwing his title in the trash rather than fighting Lennox Lewis again… so it’s hard to say if he could have been better than he was.

 

This is all perfectly plausible - likely, even.


And it kinda reinforces my point, I think... I'll explain.

Let's say he'd fought on for several years, not stepping up to consistently top opposition and holding a belt hostage.

Would this have meant he deserved to be held in higher regard?
No.

Would he have been seen all that differently in time (ie: by now)?
Probably not - he'd probably still be seen by some as a duck and by others as a great fighter who was much better than he proved.


So what if he'd stepped up?
If he'd stepped it up and fought Lewis among others - and lost to Lewis, which IMHO he would have... Would his general reputation now be weaker? Generally yes, I would think.

So where's the motivation for fighters to step up when we'll give them a better reputation for ducking and allowing their fans to insist forever that they'd have won if they did?


The only way to deserve the best reputation is to prove it... So why do boxing fans insist on hyping up guys who refused to try?!

 

He wouldn't have been any better than he was. He was always destined to burn out fast.

He also didn't have the boxing brains or style to remain at the top for long. Huge guy with a long reach and he was constantly plodding forward trying to slug it out with smaller fighters, taking massive punishment as a result. Any time he fought an even semi-decent big man that kept things at a distance he was massively outboxed and left frustratingly swinging at air and begging them to come to him. That wouldn't have changed no matter how much he took care of himself outside the ring.

 

I thought he became really quite good in the first place.

A Futch trained 6’5 235lb Olympic champion with really solid power, a top jab, tough beard, an unmatched inside game, genuine fast hands and a top 5 all time HW combo puncher who throws 55-65 punches a round… that is what it says on the tin. A really really good fighter.

It was actually watching the Coetzer fight where it occurred to me just how ludicrously talented Bowe was. A big man should not be that fluid. Heck the 200/210 lb fighters aren’t that fluid!!!

Now Bowe was there to be hit and wasn’t all that smart which would keep him towards the bottom or just outside my top 10 H2H list.

But just because he underachieved doesn’t mean he wasn’t good in the first place, which a lot of the Bowe detractors on these forums get confused with.

 

I think he was chinny and probably already brain damaged when he entered the pros. He always avoided punchers, and look at what even decent punchers like Golota, Hide, and Holyfield did to him.

I am in the minority that say that his career was maximized as it was.

 

He would have been great if he could have controlled his weight in between fights. He was the total package in his prime, but Still wish he would have fought Lewis though.

 

Golota exposed him as a very limited fighter on the outside who had no ability to fight at range.

 

IMHO that Riddick Bowe defended the title (which he won against Holyfield) against Lennox Lewis; he would be extremely sports motivated and - he would win.
Defended the title against Michael Dokes, and Jesse Ferguson... and you know the rest.
So:

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/4-man-tournament.710947/

 

I think bowes peak was always gonna be a smallish window. It seems to me that was ingrained. Burn bright, burn fast.


In that short window peak, though. I feel on the night at his very best, he would have had a very good chance of beating pretty much any fighter of that time.

But due to his lack lustre professional attitude long term, and the fact he did take punishment to easy when he didn't necessarily have to, he was never gonna be a long career fighter at his best.

 

Not as good as some people think.
His punch resistance and reflexes were questionable even before the decline.

The evidence of his chin is Holyfield 1 fight but people forget Holyfield was prone to bad performances and you wouldnt point to his fights with Stewart and the first fight with Moorer for a great chin on the other guy either would you?

Bert Cooper took more continuous artillery and combinations from Holyfield than Bowe despite losing.

Holyfield came in underweight and slugged the entire match instead of using his only advantage in the fight, his footwork and footspeed. If Holyfield had boxed as disciplined as he did against foreman or Douglas its a different fight.
And had he tried to brawl with Foreman like he did with Bowe, Foreman would have become champ in 91.

I think Bowe, even at his best, got hit and hurt too much to ever be the dominant Champ that people say he would have been.

 

Agreed, though I suspect the idea was that a motivated and fit Bowe could have improved technically under Futch and not peaked at 25 and declined from then on. He would be some mythical version who learned a method of defence that didn't involve blocking punches with his face and didn't have the mobility of a statue.

Obviously we'd never know how he would of improved or if he would have improved at all if he was professional enough to stay in shape, it's pure conjecture and we can only judge him based on the fighter he became. Also Futch retired in 98 so Bowe wouldn't have had him as a trainer for very long even if he had been a professional enough not to make Futch quit in 96.