Was Riddick Bowe's wins against Ferguson and Dokes underrated?

Bowe still has Herbie Hide, Donald, Gonzalez and a shot Pinklon Thomas on his resume

 

About the only thing that can be said for those two defenses is that they were at least better than being completely inactive. But, no. They weren’t underrated. Neither of those guys had any business fighting for the title by that point and I can see why it might have pissed off the rest of the division which was very deep at the time. It was bad enough that Rock Newman and Bowe threw the WBC title in the trash rather than to make the biggest fight of the age. But then to turn their sites towards Dokes and Ferguson ( originally supposed to be Mercer. ) ? It was a black eye on the face of heavyweight boxing….

 

Also, rising contender Alex Garcia was considered before Dokes.

 

Which pretty much proves my point

 

Hide and Donald are legit

 

Donald was never rated in the top 10 he was a solid Heavyweight with decent skills but nothing more.

Hide was a blown up Cruiserweight who was only ranked in the top 10 for 1 year.

Hide had power but he was a glass cannon and was never one of the top Heavyweights.

Again if those are the best names outside of the Holyfield fights it proves my point Bowe has a shallow resume.

 

All Mercer had to do was beat Ferguson. And we would have had Bowe-Mercer

 

For me Donald is like the perfect HW non contender but hes a HW non contender nontheless. Like hes the guy whose picture gets to be in the dictionary next to that phrase.

 

Considering he was supposed to fight Lennox Lewis, no.

Dokes and Ferguson fought each other on ESPN about six months earlier.

Nobody who watched their fight that night ever would've guessed BOTH would receive world title shots in the next 12 months.