Anthony Joshuas Legacy

3rd best heavyweight of this era.

 

Bowe beat Holy twice, but he never had another fight on top. His second best opponent was Herbie Hide. Also, even the second Holy fight was post-heart attack.

Also, most people at the time thought he should have lost to Tubbs, and he should have 2-3 disqualifications.

AJ at least had a good run on the top end.

 

Anthony Joshua will be in the Hall of Fame. How soon he gets there will depend on how his career finishes up. If he goes on an extended losing streak, it may take longer.

(Turki's money may cause a lot of these guys to take on more losses and extend their careers like they wouldn't have before. That power-mad little dwarf may be more dangerous to the health of fighters than 15 rounders ever were.)

But Joshua was a huge heavyweight star (there were 90,000+ fans there on Saturday). He made a fair number of successful defenses. Joshua also put British heavyweight boxing on the map more so than Fury, given that Fury disappeared for years after the Klitschko win.

He's still dangerous to most heavyweights. Maybe not so against the best, though.

During his heyday, he was as dangerous as they come.

 

Riddick Bowe had wins against Larry Donald, Herbie Hide, Jorge Luis Gonzalez, Bruce Seldon, Michael Dokes, Pierre Coetzer, Tyrell Biggs, Bert Cooper. People forget that the wars with Golota were actually wins.
They were not elite, and some were past it .... but the fighters AJ defeated were not much better. The likes of Takam, Pulev, Martin, Molina, Breazeale, Wallin.

 

Who have forgotten WladKlit, Povetkin, Parker, Ruiz, Whyte....

Joshua had more high-end wins.

 

That said, Bowe's win over Holyfield in their first fight was better than any win Anthony Joshua has ever produced.

Holyfield was the undefeated World Heavyweight Champion and had just turned 30.

Wlad was 41 years old, hadn't fought in a year and a half and was coming off a loss. Not comparable at all.

There's no point in running down Bowe. And you can argue Bowe won the rematch, as well as the third fight with Evander.

Bowe threw 100 more punches and LANDED 100 more punches than Holyfield in their rematch.

You don't see too many defending heavyweight champions (which Bowe was) LAND 100 more punches in a fight and lose their title. That will forever be a bad decision.

 

"Bowe threw 100 more punches and LANDED 100 more punches than Holyfield in their rematch."

Assuming Compubox is accurate, which it often isn't and at times it's wildly inaccurate. Some nerd counted the punches for that fight and dozens of others and found that Bowe outlanded Holyfield by just 9, 150-141. The consensus on fan scoring sites is a close but clear Holyfield win, with more having it a draw than Bowe winning iirc.

 

If the Parker win defines AJ's legacy then it's utterly dire. Wlad, Povetkin and even Whyte look way better in terms of performance and arguably are all better than the Parker win seeing as Whyte beat him.

The Parker fight was atrocious for a few reasons:

1. Parker came to pointfight and survive, not to hurt and stop Joshua: it was a cash out of Parker's 0 and the WBO belt, a disgrace and an insult to the fans

2. The referee was a bodyguard for Joshua, frequently giving him breaks so that he didn't gas out and minimising any inside fighting

3. Linked to 1., the scorecards were rigged in AJ's favour: Parker's team knew this as it was London and given the respective Takam fights it was clear Parker had almost no chance of dominating AJ in a long range boxing match, so he had no path to victory given the gameplan

 

Hide, Donald were underrated wins. Bowe also beats him h2h

 

They really were not. Hide was a blown-up cruiser, and later competed at cruiser. The fact that a 6'5" fighter's THREE best opponents were cruisers tells you everything you need to know about Bowe right there. He was terrified of quality big boys, or at least, Rock Nemwan was.

Donald was a decent guy, nothing more.

 

Sad to think he ducked Fury for years. For me the last important fights of this past HW Era that should happen asap. Fury vs. Usyk II, Fury vs. AJ, and AJ vs. Wilder. Then we can close this chapter with a clear understanding on where each of them rates.

 

No one would debate that. But again, Joshua had a more legit title run with more wins over top-tier contenders.

Hence, the reason I say they cluster in about the same place.

 

Joshua is too chinny and cannot fight on the inside, once joshua is hurt its over. you viciously overrate aj and underrate Bowes arsenal tbf. aj gets dogwalked by even the Golota version of Bowe imo. He still dropped Golota and had some sucess despite the beatdown.

Maybe a similar legacy but anyone should know who the better fighter was

 

Joshua lost twice to a blown-up cruiser. Clearly.

 

Bowe was chinny too, which is why they steered him from punchers, and why he got knocked down by moderate punchers like Holy and Golata. Also, since the quality men he fought were all small, his famed ability to fight on the inside was actually an inability to jab and outbox.

BUT THIS IS ALL IRRELEVANT. We are discussing where they cluster in history, not some sort of head-to-head, which is hypothetical. Bowe had a pathetic reign with two of the worst defenses in history, so it is impossible to rank him as a first tier great. He clusters with Joshua.