Are we forgetting that Bowe was getting dogwalked by Andrew Golata?

Wasn’t Bowe pretty spent and brain damaged by that point? I doubt Golota had that same success against the Bowe from ‘93

 

Holyfield beat the prime out of Bowe he was damaged goods after that and it showed in the 3rd fight with Holyfield in which Bowe barely got a win vs an under par Holyfield.

Plus Bowe was grossly out of shape vs Golota in their 1st fight and then when the 2nd fight came along Bowe tried to lose too much weight too quickly 50 pounds in 8 weeks to be exact. He was a walking zombie horribly weight drained/weak and Golota basically finished off any little bit of what remained of Bowe.

 

Remember Bowe came into the first Golota fight with a concussion equilibrium infection from sparring.

He would boast to his sparring partners "Your shots can't hurt me, I can take them!", that mentality came from Muhammad Ali.

 

Bowe was a great fighter for one fight in which he had enormous physical advantages over his opponent.

 

Bowe is and was overrated. His size and fluid offensive game, hid many of his flaws. His defense was poor, his punch while decent wasn’t able to deter anyone. His dedication was crap. Golota punched the crap out of a fat Bowe in the first fight and Bowe quit. He knew he wasn’t going to win and he laid down for the DQ. To be fair he tried to train for second fight and way over did it and came in shot. But showed tremendous heart, a dangerous level of heart and hung in there taking a beaten until a discouraged Golota fouled himself out. But Bowe had tougher than expected fights with Coetzer, Tubbs and the slippery Mathis Jr where he should have been disqualified.
Newman kept Bowe away from punchers too. Bowe’s record is deceiving.

 

Bowe should have been DQd against Mathis and Tillery, and at the time, it was widely thought Tubbs won. The narrative has since grown that "Bowe won a close one."

 

Bowe should thank his stars for Golota coming along and beating his future kids into a milkshake, because then people forget how darn dirty HE was as a boxer.

 

Bowe was 28 and was just coming back off of a win vs Holyfield

 

No one would give a damn about Bowe if he wasn’t such an aesthetically pleasing fighter. He had perfect punching form, threw a lot of punches and he fought in the pocket, so people think he is this genius of a boxer when he is far from it.

Bowe struggled against any good long-range boxer before he just walked through them with his size. Aging Tony Tubbs beat him everywhere but activity. Him and his team somehow avoided every puncher in arguably the most puncher-rich era of HWs and Golota made him look like an amateur so badly that people tried to argue Bowe was shot at the age of 29 after KO’ing Holyfield.

Bowe was a gifted fighter who couldn’t fix his flaws and lucked out against Holyfield who was the absolute best fighter Bowe’s style was a bad match-up for. That’s really all he was. If he was allowed to fight with the likes of Ruddock, Lewis, Tyson, Morrison, Mercer etc (though its Mercer’s fault that this did not happen) people would view Bowe in a different light.

 

Bowe had gigantic potential and Futch said he was never able to get more than 75% of his potential because Bowe was so undisciplined once he won the championship. Bowe was his own worst enemy

 

Bowe won those fights.

Golota quit in both fights. And Bowe showed a lot of grit. Especially the second fight, he showed incredible heart.

Bowe won. Golota lost.
2-0 to Bowe. And there was nothing controversial about those DQ verdicts.

 

1) Golota was big, brilliant, and very good inside.
2) Bowe was sliding, overweight, and then drained in one fight.
3) Bowe still had the blind grit to take everything Golota had and make him quit.

 

It´s crazy to say, but Bowe was physically depleted at 28. It sometimes happens when fighters take enough punishment, and there is plenty of evidence that Bowe took ridiculous amounts of punishment in the gym.

One of the best examples of this is Hernan Marquez, who was washed up by the age of 27. He simply no longer could take sustained punishment, and was now gunshy.
Diego Corrales was a shell of his former self at 29.
Glen Tapia was forced into retirement at 27.

Sometimes young guys break down sooner than one would expect.