Golota's Inactivity Before Lewis...

Was it part of the reason that he was blown out in one round? Did Lennox Lewis seize the moment knowing he could blitz Golota like that?

Golota was inactive for almost a year after Bowe II. He still had plenty to learn at the time and had been fighting very actively for the years leading up to the two Bowe matches.

I've often wondered how much the two Bowe fights took out of Golota.

Look at it this way. In those 18 rounds Bowe's career was ended. One of the very best heavyweights in the world beaten so badly during those two fights that even with multiple milion dollar fights right in front of him he was still completely done.

Even if Golota only came out of those two fights half as damaged as Bowe, who was literally given brain damage from the beatings, that's still extreme.

Thoughts?

 

That he does.

It's weird how the injuries in the Bowe fight didn't make him quit as where crippling anxiety did. Supposedly Golota was another beast completely when relaxed in the gym and what not.

Eh. We were deprived of an ATG fighter if he'd come together completely, I think.

 

Who knows if he could of beaten Holyfield or not. Golota's problem was always making it into the latter rounds, maintaining his focus and not becoming anxious and therefore crumbling and looking for a way out.

Holyfield was certainly ripe for the taking around the time Golota was/would have been peaking.

I do agree with you that Lennox would have always beaten him though. Tyson too.

 

Old Geroge would have a punchers chance and nothing else. He was outboxed by Tommy Morrison and Axel Schulz. Neither one could box like Golota while on form.

 

Bert Cooper turned his back and quite against any numbers of fighters, from Pou'ah to Corrie Sanders. His very first loss was him quitting after being thumbed.

He had a nasty habit of doing that.

Golota already took Samson's bombs, though. He bit Samson, but he didn't quit!

 

Well, after Moorer his reaction time and speed degraded to the point where he could never connect with those bombs, you know?

It's a unbelievable miracle that he even managed to land that bomb on Moorer.

 

Maybe that was as much as he was ever really going to decline. Maybe he hit that wall. Who knows. Foreman more then likely could still be blasting out C-Level tomato can guys like he was when he back back in the 80's. He's just that kind of of athletic enigma.