Bowe is a superior boxer to Lewis

Very strange how some people dismiss Bowe fight 3 fights with Holyfield (that actually took a lot out of both fighters) and the punishment Golota and Bowe inflicted on each other.

Truth is, Holyfield was Bowe's leftovers before he beat Tyson twice, nevermind by the time Lewis got his hands on his remains.

Also, Golota absorbed a lot of punishment from Bowe, despite inflicting more. There's a reasonable argument to say Golota was never the same again, and was half-ruined before Lewis iced him in 1.

Regardless of the Golota point, which might be contentious, I can't see how anyone can contend that Lewis's wins over Holyfield were as good as Bowe's. Holyfield was a lot fresher against Bowe.

 

Quote the relevant section, pinocchio.

 

Unforgiven makes a much better argument for Bowe, mainly because he uses rational, fact-based arguments. Doesn't mean I agree, but there's some truth in what he says.

 

The first offer that Lewis and Maloney turned down ($3 million) was the same amount Bowe was paid to challenge Holyfield.

Also, the other offer was good, and Maloney even admitted it was good, allowing them both to have a tune up, with Lewis getting $3 million to fight a handpicked opponent to set up a Bowe fight for $9 million or more based on a percentage.

But they chose to go along with the WBC and a Tucker fight where Don King desperately bid over the odds to get the fight.

I'm not sure why people see this as a straight-forward duck.
Well, that's due to Lewis's PR.
He acted up the victim image, the dignified, noble challenger being ducked by scoundrels from America.
Whereas Bowe and Newman just acted their normal selves, which never did help their case.

 

I'm not even arguing for the premise of this thread's title though. I don't think Bowe is a superior boxer.
I think his achievements and abilities are badly underappreciated though. He does deserve mentioning alongside the other notable HWs of the 90s, in my opinion (Lewis, Holyfield, the declining but still important Tyson).

 

Bowe no work ethic, and now no money ( skint as f000k ) ducked Lewis big time.

Lewis on the other hand had all these, and still has

Never in my dreams should I have ended up richer than Bowe, I like the guy and feel sorry for him.

 

regardless to the outcomes of the 3 Holy fights, those fights took the best from Bowe and he never looked great again thereafter imo.

As well many Bowe fans claim Holy was at his best fighting Bowe, I don't agree, as we all know Holy put on more muscle after he fought Bowe and imo it worked for him. Some guys get slower with more muscle, but for whatever reasons it seemed to work out really well for Holy. He was able to man handle the big guys in ways he wasn't able to prior to putting on the extra muscle and strength it brought him. Whether that was PED's or not I don't know, it is what it is, I just know that Holy turned into a more powerful heavyweight than he was earlier in his pro career.

Did I just claim that Holy was shyte when he fought Bowe and great thereafter?

No, I said that imo Holy became a slightly better heavy after he fought Bowe then he was during.

 

He got slower after the first fight. Holyfield was big and powerful in the Bowe rematch, 217 pounds and solid. He was pretty much on the decline after the second fight, "losing" to Moorer. As far as power, he was certainly hitting as hard as ever in 1995, with the third match but he wasn't as busy or as quick as he'd been.

Seeing as Bowe was getting worse through those fights, it makes no sense to think Holyfield was getting better, since he ended the trilogy being battered and TKO'd in 8 brutal rounds. Both fighters were already feeling the effects of hard fights by that time.

After the Bowe trilogy Holyfield didn't do much. The two Tyson fights impressed everyone but there's no way that Holyfield would have fared as well against the versions of Bowe he'd fought. The Tyson fight was a lot of wrestling and holding by both men. Yes, Holyfield was hitting hard but not necessarily more than he'd been before. It took him a lot of punches to win at the end.

And then the Moorer rematch, where Holyfield looked pretty bad for a spell but he was up against a weak opponent who had declined even more than he had I believe.

And Vaughn Bean, I doubt he could have gone the distance with a 1992 Holyfield !

 

Holyfield couldn't krack an egg as the years rolled on.

 

Holyfield was as big as ever in the Bowe rematch :

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Du-70-kYjA[/url]

[yt]-Du-70-kYjA[/yt]

 

In November 1992 he fought reigning champ Evander Holyfield for the undisputed heavyweight title.

A couple of weeks earlier in London, Bowe's old Olympic rival, Lennox Lewis, knocked out Canadian Donovan "Razor" Ruddock in two rounds, establishing himself as the World Boxing Council's number one contender.

The Bowe-Holyfield and Lewis-Ruddock fights were part of a mini-tournament, whereby all four fighters agreed the two winners would meet each other for the undisputed world heavyweight championship. Bowe's manager Rock Newman made a proposal: the $32 million purse HBO was offering should be split 90-10 in Bowe's favor, an 'absurd' offer which Lennox Lewis rejected

And the so called facts you cited were in reference to a Lewis - Tucker fight.

Maybe you should try reading the articles you link to support your argument.:nut

As to the NYTimes article I guess you completely missed this part.

"I hope Bowe will modify his position," Sulaiman said from his office in Mexico City, "but it appears that won't happen. He doesn't seem to want to fight the man who knocked him out. If he can erase that loss, we will still recognize him as champion.
"Everybody wants to see that fight, and Lennox Lewis is willing, ready and available to fight him at any time."

 

This I wholeheartedly agree with.

 

Whats absurd about 10% of 32 million? Thats exactly what Bowe got when he was the challenger. More in fact.

Calling it absurd = pricing yoursef out. What do you not understand about this simple situation.

Bowe maintained throughout this whole debacle that Lewis hid behind the WBC and it was their corrupt actions that made him trash the belt.

Lewis was the B side acting like the A side. He claimed his mandatory 25% was too little , then when he was the WBC titlist claimed by his own admission that the challenger is only worth 20%.

He was guaranteed more than that against Bowe. He turned it down cos he knew his raw skill set was no match for the skills of Big Daddy Bowe's. Anyboy with half a boxing brain could see that he was not on his level.

Lewis chose the smart route with the help of King whose best buddy was Suiliman. They underhandedly got Bowe stripped then manipulated the facts so gullible fanboi's like you wouldn't know any different.

 

No point into discussing this with someone who is just too lost to educate.

Bowe ducked his way out of boxing history is what happened.

Spin it anyway you want, but the better boxing, the better legacy, the better career, the guy with more $$$, and the guy who won in the Olympics is always going to be named Lewis.

 

Those words referring to the negotiations as "absurd" aren't my works, they are right off Bowe's Wikipedia page.

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rid****_Bowe[/url]

Honestly this is like arguing with an infant.