Do i underrate Bowe?

He also claims that Bowe's win over a 36 year old Ferguson who was losing to everyone and his brother was more impressive than Tyson's win over a young Ferguson, on the grounds that Bowe finished him more decisively. A small detail that he omits, however is that Tyson was 19 years old, had 17 fights, and was facing a younger Ferguson, while Bowe was 25 years old, had 33 fights, was a world champion, and fighting the corpse of Jesse.

I guess he feels that focussing on points which best suit his argument, and ignoring ones that don't is the way to go...

 

Stop the madness Bowe won the first fight because Holyfield stupidly chose to brawl rather then box.

He narrowly lost the second fight .

Almost lost the third fight but just pulled it out.

Bowe won the trilogy narrowly i give him some credit for it

Bowe THREW away a belt rather then face Lewis nothing you can say that Bowe really was not afraid of Lewis can change that fact.

Bowe vs Lewis world champion vs amateur conqueror would be be a classic PPV moneymaking fight .

Bowe with his lack of defense and inability to handle a jab would be in hell against Lewis .

Everybody who chose to jab with Bowe outjabbed him for a big guy Bowe was terrible against guys with jabs.

I give bowe a top 15 spot based on his skill but he is to lazy and inconsistent to ever make it to the top 10.

 

Herbie Hides WBO belt was **** its only in the past 2 years that the WBO belt has actually meant something.

Funny that Tyson of all people has a much better legacy as a champion then Bowe had.

Tyson unified all the important belts Bowe broke them up.

Tyson pretty much cleared out all the legit HWs of the 80s with the exception of Douglas ( i dont consider Holyfield an 80s HW he did his best work in the 90s)

Tyson had 9 title defenses Bowe had 3

Tyson actually did win a second legit belt unlike Bowe who beat Hide for the WBO belt:yep .

Come to think of it all the elites in the 90s save one where two time legit champs Lewis Holyfield Tyson

Bowe was only a legit champ ONCE.

 

im pretty sure the belt binning was a way of having a big big fight with lewis late on.

would of been great


sadly he disappeared and never was seen or heard of again

 

Why is riddick bowe great? Well for starters he is better than anyone joe louis has ever beaten. I mean why is joe louis so great if he hasnt beaten anybody better than bowe, a person that supposedly has a 'pathetic' legacy.

what makes jersey joe so ****in special? He only beat ezzard charles and ezzard is not a top 10 heavyweight like holyfield is. Walcott got ko'd by a washed up joe louis. I highly doubt the washed up version of tyson would have ko'd bowe.

 

Can you imagine 5'10" Jersey Joe against a behemoth like Bowe? With a short 70" reach? Bowe by knockout inside of three.

 

- It depends how you rate him. I have him solidly top 20 but lack of substance to his record prevents him from getting closer to the elite 10. I hold him in reasonably high esteem head to head and he'd stand a good chance in this regard against a fair share of oldtimers, top contenders from any era. Certainly he was very good for a short time: fundamentally very sound, fine skills and was simply a great inside fighter (that uppercut was as great as any ever. period). Problems were motivation and self belief plus the fact he was defensively a bit vunerable.

- I think Holyfield was a good matchup for Bowe, who held a distinct size and strength advantage over him and carried more power for sure. However had Holyfield choose to box more smart rather than recklessly brawl as often as he did he'd have certainly stood a better chance of winning those fights he lost. We saw in their second fight that he had much more success when he kept the fight a bit more on the outside where Bowe physical advantages didn't come into play so much. Yeah work the body for sure, but move in and out, don't dwell on the inside and try to overpower the bigger man. It ain't happening. Incidently I think Evanders physical prime was in the early 90's- although he fought some of his strategically best ever fights after that.

- He was definitely faded by the time he fought Golota but certainly not a 'shot' fighter. He still had the talent but was increasingly out of shape and certainly had lost speed and stamina. Having said that Golota was the acid test for him against a hard punching and relatively skilled big guy. He failed that test which suggests to me that he'd struggle to impose imself on the likes of a Liston, Tyson or Lewis.

- It depends. I can't really envisage him beating that many of my Top 20, but I'd make him fave against Dempsey, Marciano and Patterson amongst a few others whatever that means. 50/50 against Tunney and Johnson (he has the tools to beat both but I'm not totally convinced).

- I have him at around #15 overall, behind Holyfield (who is #10)

 

By any standards, Bowe's professional record is very good.
The only loss is to a fighter he beat twice, and it was a close decision.

I think his first fight with Holyfield is probably the best heavyweight performance of the 1990s. (And Bowe's loss to Holyfield via close decision was also due to one of the best performances of the decade).
Maybe Holyfield fought a "wrong strategy" but that should take nothing away from Bowe. Strategy is part of the game, and Bowe's own strategy worked. I'm not sure any fighter of the era would have bettered that Holyfield.

IMO, Bowe certainly slipped slowly but surely after his showpiece win, and he looked a bit war-torn in the third go with Holy (as did Holyfield) and certainly against Golota.

Golota fought well but seems to get a free pass with those fights that he rightfully lost by DQ. It wasn't like Golota was just unlucky and fouled himself out "accidentally", he thoroughly went to war with Bowe's testicles. A disgusting show, gratuitously spiteful. Bowe was no angel either (should have been DQ'd against Mathis Jr.) but he showed a ton of heart and toughness in the fights with Golota. He deserved the wins, mentally he had "out-toughed" Golota.
Considering these fights are Bowe at his most ineffective, he proved himself remarkably hard to crack.

Bowe was a top level fighter for 3-4 years, a short time, and number 1 for only a year or two in total, but that's true of some other heavyweights who get bracketed along with the greats.

Bowe's major sins are :
1. Ducking Lennox Lewis (a management decision no doubt, but one that does taint Bowe's standing).
2. Getting fat and deteriorating rapidly as a fighter. Despite his good results it's perceived that he lacked discipline and "wasted his talent". And he hadn't quite done enough to "earn" that privilege.

 

Some very good points in this post..

Bowe also had some additional wins that were fairly decent against men who I wouldn't call great, but respectable at the time. Hide, Donald, Coetzer, Gonzalez, and Seldon were all decent fighters in their prime who were in good shape and had good records. No, they weren't spectacular persay but they were still good wins.

 

Yeah, people might look back and think why doesn't he have, say, Tommy Morrison or Ray Mercer on his record, but those guys were more inconsistent than Bowe, and at the time he fought the likes of Coetzer, Donald and Hide, in actual fact Morrison and Mercer were possibly rated lower. In retrospect some fighters get rated as "top fighters" of the era, but at the time Bowe would have had to either (a) fought them when they were still undefeated up-and-comers, a situation that he has no control over, or (b) caught them on a rare occasion of them coming off one of their few "respectable results".
Bowe fought Holyfield THREE TIMES within a string on NINE FIGHTS over a 3 year period. And some reasonable fighters in between. It's no walk in the park. He ducked Lewis, but suggestions or implications that he ducked other "top fighters" seem to be mostly unfounded. Bowe certainly wasn't avoiding the "champions" of 1995 - Foreman, McCall, Seldon or Bruno, they were more likely avoiding him.

 

Very true,

and I have always agreed with your point about Bowe ducking Lewis as a managerial decision rather than his own. Rock Newman did not always make decisions that were in Riddick's best interest in my opinion.

You're points about him being unduely criticized for ducking other fighters is well noted too.

During a very short period in the mid 90's, Bowe faced and for the most part defeated Buster Mathis, Herbie Hide, Larry Donald, Jorge Gonzalez, Andrew Golata and Evander Holyfield. All of these fights occured between August of 1994 to July of 1996. That's a total of 5 undefeated fighters plus a third meeting with an all time great in less than two years.

In the meantime, Michael Moorer had been sparked by George Foreman. Tommy Morrison had been beaten in one round by Michael Bent. Mercer had lost fights to Holmes, Ferguson, Holyfield, Lewis, and drew with Marion Wilson. Lewis had been Ko'd by McCall. Tyson was just getting out of prison after 4 years and facing McNeeley. No one else within the top tier of heavyweights were doing as well as Bowe, and in fact, most were doing a lot worse.

Bowe was very conceivably the best fighter in the division between 94' to 96', despite having no claim to title status.

 

Exactly. :good
In fact, he had a decent claim to be the number 1 heavyweight for much of the time from late '92 to mid-'96, and when not the number 1 he had a pretty solid claim for number 2 throughout this period.

And many people claim this was among the best eras for heavyweights, yet they have reservations about given Bowe his dues.