Riddick Bowe

Looking at the film of the fight, had Holyfield up by 2/3 rounds. Maybe a bit biased in scoring the close rounds for Holyfield because the expectations for Bowe in this fight was higher than for Holyfield because of what happened in the 1st fight plus Holyfield still looked in great shape while Bowe was fat and overweight. That shouldn't influence judges but maybe it could have done.

Bowe retiring without the Holyfield loss don't really make a difference to his all time ranking. Too short a prime and missing career defining bouts against Lewis and Tyson and lesser extent against the likes of Moorer, Mercer and old Foreman. Probably still makes top ten in H2H rankings though . Probably.

 

I had it 115-114 for Holyfield. It was very close. I’m not big on Punchstats, but for whatever it’s worth, Bowe outlanded Holyfield by 100 punches or so based on the numbers and I’m sure nowadays there would be quite a debate on the forums who deserved the win.

I scored the 7th round (Fan Man) even. Holyfield had a big round 5 and also won round 6, but Bowe was having a very good round 7, controlling it with his jab. After the break, Holyfield got the better of round 7. It was tough to score and I had it even.

There were 2 rounds late in the fight that I gave to Holyfield based on late rallies. They were close rounds that I gave to Holyfield based on the endings, and it made the difference on my card. Possibly on the official judges as well.

 

By the way.. Did the clownman survive when he was in the floor? I imagine that the people wanted to kill him

 

Wow.poor guy

 

Reads like he had a hard life.

 

I think the stoppage helped Holy a lot more than Bowe. Still, I have Evan Fields eeking out this one. If I remember correctly there was a strong sentiment on his side which might have influenced the judges.

 

Watched it recently and my score was 115-114 for Holy. 114-114 is fine too.

 

I'm going to be an outsider on this one but, it wouldn't be the first time...

I watched this bout again recently and honestly can't recall if I'd ever scored it before and, if I had, had no recollection of what I'd made of it. In any event, in this watching, I was actually surprised how close the scoring was.

Holyfield, to my mind, was a clear winner. He took a significantly different approach to the rematch than in their initial encounter, which forced Bowe to work harder for the win. But, in my opinion, Bowe wasn't sharp enough to make a sustained and convincing impression.

Bowe's work was, at times and for the most part I thought, quite sloppy. With Holyfield seemingly happy to play the role of out-boxer, Bowe was hard-pushed to assert himself and was only distinctly making the mark, on occasion. Evander's defense was actually defense, rather than 'attack-as-a-form-of-defense'. A lot of what Bowe threw did not land cleanly; scuffed the target, hit gloves or missed altogether.

Bowe's delivery improved, during the up-close action, when Holyfield went into 'first-fight-mode' but, overall, Holyfield delivered the superior, all-round performance.


So, in regards to Bowe's undefeated legacy, had Bowe got the nod in the Holyfield rematch, I feel quite sure it would have been seen as a controversial decision and not a satisfactory result. Plus, he would still have left the bad odor of his Championship tenure in the air; he would still have had the weight battles and still have missed a series of key matches on which his legacy could have been massively improved. Retiring undefeated, having not faced Lewis, Tyson and several others in the top-10 of the times would still dent his rating, today; a controversial decision in the Holyfield rematch notwithstanding.

 

I had it a draw, and I do think Bowe was coming on when the fight was stopped.

 

I have a kind of "friend" that's like that guy. Thinks that setting a cop car on fire would be a good thing and a wizard idea Fanman probably genuinely thought that gatecrashing a fight between two of the scariest dudes on the planet using a flying hoover was a true stroke of genius and he'd better do it before somebody else did

 

I had it for Holyfield by two rounds. Bowe’s career pinnacle was the first fight, after that he lost what little discipline he had.