91-92 Bowe vs 97-2000 Lewis

Lewis' team accepted the first offer only when team Bowe projected a fight during the Super Bowl (against rising contender Alex Garcia which would not come to fruition) which was mid December I believe.
A day before the negotiations would go to purse bids, Bowe vacated the belt.
We can criticisize Bowe for vacating the belt but I don't think Lewis' team came totally serious by rejecting and then accepting offers.

Also, why not criticizing Lewis for rejecting a 11 million offer in July of 1993 ?
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-07-21-sp-15342-story.html

Whether team Lewis or team Bowe, they all made business decisions.

 

I would confidently pick the Lewis of 97-00 over the Bowe of 91-92 (I think it should be 92-93). Lewis was more polished by then.

If it’s when they should have fought in 93’, then it’s a tougher one. Lennox had more technical flaws, such as with his balance and how open he’d be when throwing longer and looping right hands. Despite being better schooled than Lewis, Bowe still had leaky defense. He seemed to be better defensively on the inside than on the outside. And while Bowe had a good chin, it’s not like he faced a whole lot of big punchers . I would probably favor Lewis, but it would be more a slight favorite.

After Bowe and Newman got that huge Time Warner deal, I think they wanted to push back Lewis on their schedule and fight him later down the line. Dokes and Ferguson were way overmatched. Holyfield was believed to be done. I think they knew Lewis was a risk and figured they would make big money against softer touches before taking on the tougher assignment. It’s not some rare occurrence for fighters and their teams to do this, but it doesn’t make it suck any less.

I’m not even sure the details of the failed negotiations (if any) of Joshua-Wilder, but I just realized it was a like a poor man’s version of Lewis-Bowe and how they never fought either
.

 

Of course. Bowe was a junior light heavyweight just three years before Seoul, and this was Lewis's second Olympics! Add to that the fact that Bowe had to fight real battles on his way to the final (the Miroshnichenko fight), while Lennox had an easy road, having fought fewer fights and against easier opponents. The fight itself wasn't convincing either. If you were to apply Riddick's KO to his professional fight history, you could just as easily say he could have been stopped maybe 10 times, because he was much more wobbly against Holyfield, Golota, and Hide, and even several of them.

Interestingly, Riddick wasn't afraid of a rematch with Gonzales, who defeated him much more decisively than Lewis in his amateur days and looked very dangerous in 1995.

 

He wasn't fighting Tucker for the vacant belt. He got his belt after Bowe refused to fight him and defended it with Tucker for the first time. He was, as we would call it today, an email champ.

 

Lennox on points after a close but not spectacular fight. This is one of the most interesting missing fights in boxing history. Despite public statements, I've always had the impression that Bowe wasn't crazy about facing Lewis, and if they had fought, I think the memory of his stoppage loss at the Olympics would have forced Bowe to be cautious... too cautious! The Lewis of '97-2000, confident and mature, would have landed the better shots and would have been wary of Bowe's power. In any case, it's a real shame they didn't fight.

 

Personally - Riddick Bowe's wins against Holyfield was much better than Lennox's was. But, I do think his win against Vitali is very underrated but Bowe was more durable and skilled than Vitali.

In regards to the fight not being made, people forget that Lennox rejected the SAME money Bowe himself had made against Holyfield.