How do you view Riddick Bowe?

Waste of talent. Lazy. One trick pony. No good fights outside of Holy. Coward for not fighting Lewis. Should have losses to Tubbs, and DQ losses to Tillery, Mathis, and maybe Coetzer. Protected...avoided punchers. Looked terribly glass-jawed against moderate punchers like Golota, Holyfield and Hide. "Defenses" against Dokes and Ferguson were a joke. Could only win when he had the right kinds of physical advantages, and even that was only 2 of 3 fights. Vaunted "infighting" ability was a function of not knowing how to use his size. Overrated. Obnoxious.

 

Mostly on Youtube.

 

Uh oh...I misunderstood the question! Thanks for setting me straight.

 

he had ability, but I always found he was vulnerable on the inside if his opponent could take his punch. He lacked a right hand..

 

The one from Holyfield I could have been a problem to most heavyweight champions h2h pity we didn't see him replicating the same prime/performance because mental health problems and lack of discipline.
Also the Lewis duck is a huge no for me.
In a perfect timeline the 90s would have rivaled the golden era of the 70s, with the equivalent of Norton/Frazier/Ali/Foreman being the 4 kings Bowe/Tyson/Lewis/Holyfield facing each other during their prime.

 

Just another "Never was": a good enough but flawed boxer who didn't accomplished much, but somehow gets wildly overrated like some kind of unrealized ATG.

Golota beat the heck out of him. TWICE. And Bowe was gifted wins only because Golota is a nutcase.

That tells you all you need to know about Bowe as a boxer.

 

Well…not only because Golota was nuts. In their second fight especially, Bowe showed an absolute tonne of heart. Maybe struggling so much he exposed himself as less than great, but Golota would’ve won that night vs an awful lot of Heavies who’d have thrown in the towel earlier from that punishment.

 

That’s mine as well. As brief as his prime was, he’d be dangerous & perhaps even favoured against some men who accomplished a helluva lot more. For an ostensibly IQ-challenged fellow he was witty, too. I can’t in good conscience call him a great fighter on the strength of his career, but he could be & was on his day. He’d have convincingly beaten the Lewis of the early 90’s for mine, though he seems not to have believed it.

 

What specially bothers me is that when he fought Golota, Bowe was just 29 and he was already a walking punching bag.

Furthermore, after the first Golota fight, you would expect Bowe to get his stuff together for the rematch. But Bowe in Golota II was as awful as in the first fight.

I don't dislike Bowe, but I don't get him neither.
I love boxing but I hate what boxing does to guys who stick around for too long, thus in my view when you are not more in the game, you must get the heck out ASAP.

If Bowe was already tired of boxing and lacked discipline, no problem with that, but why to stick around being badly beaten?

 

We have to remember it’s not just a sport, but a job.

 

He was a simp and Rock Newman was a total *****. Bowe was a massively flawed fighter who had good gifts and made minimal hay out of them. He's phenomenally overrated because his style and weaknesses meshed well with the also overrated Holyfield to create mildly compelling matches. In the end, he was bossed by crappy Andrew Golota. And that was his true measure.

 

A little bit inconclusive really.

 

When he was champion 30 odd years ago or so, I believed he was really good. When Lewis got iced by McCall with one punch I actually thought Bowe had made a smart move and not wasted his time for a guy not ready for the big leagues. But looking back the flaws were there, no defense, no discipline. He should of been Dq"d vs Mathis. He avoided punchers like the plague and Golota ruined him. To be fair -Golota looked liked an exceptional talent when they did fight. Both men left a lot in the ring in that two fight series.

 

To be fair Bowe did try and get himself in shape for the rematch he lost 50 pounds in 8 weeks and weighed 235 pounds which is the same weight he weighed for the 1st Holyfield fight.

The problem was Bowe lost too much weight too quickly and he was horribly weight drained and looked weak and frail looking.