I think a bad showing by Lewis would have encouraged them to make that big bucks fight but after the Rudduck blasting they figured it was smarter to play the non-unify mode
Bowe would have fought the best had Rock not had the knee pads out every time Lewis tried to make the match.. he did face a few half decent bangers tho, and til this day only ever lost one fight in his whole career and it was a close one, and he won two out of three against that same man.. Bowe was a talent , and a great boxer tp study he had it all..
I didn't realize it sounded that way as we were discussing Bowe's chin. Of course he was good fighter (who could've been probably great fighter), when I said "exposed" I rather meant Golota exposed that he was past prime at the moment they fought. I think he was already sliding after first Holyfield fight, but was just lucky to win the trilogy with hepatisis help so nobody noticed.
Bowe was a fine fighter and one of the better big men,IMO better than Carnera,Willard,Valuev?,Buddy Baer but fell short of Lewis and the Klitschko's but of course, none of them had to fight a prime Joe Louis, who IMO would have had a 90% chance to beat them all
By all standards, Riddick Bowe's career was very good. He was never stopped and lost only once to a great fighter whom he beat twice. Additionally, while the careers of Hide, Seldon, Donald, Gonzalez, Golata and Coetzer may not be much to talk about in hind site, at the time they were large heavyweights in their primes and all possessing good records. I don't think that its either fair nor accurate to make the blanket statement that he ducked big punchers or top fighters, just because he ducked one man ( Lewis. ) Furthermore, I happen to think that his refusal to face Lennox Lewis had every much to do with Rock Newman's influence as it did his own judgement...... Legacy wise, I don't rate Riddick Bowe very high by virtue of the fact that he had a very short title reign, and was unsuccessful at beating all of the division's elite. On a head to head basis however, I think he may very well have been a big problem for a lot of legendary heavyweights, and perhaps even their downfall.
Hide could wack, he showed that vs Bent but also showed an ability to go down from glancing punches, Vitali caught him a few times but i dont think with one of Vitali's best.
Bowe fought some good punchers but no one in Lewis's league and with his leaky defense he may be in trouble I suppose the truth is nobody wanted to fight Lewis after the Ruddock fight and I believe Bowe struggled against quality large men of the size of Lewis and Golota. That said the Bowe/Holyfield trilogy was the last time we saw two all time great heavyweights fighting each other in their prime.