riddick bowe and what could of been

Holyfield-Bowe 1 was the greatest heavyweight I've ever seen. It had pretty much everything. Long range boxing, inside fighting, a fast pace and plenty of heavy power punches being thrown.

I certainly find much more variety in this fight than Ali-Frazier III. The skill level was higher and it was just as brutal.

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPejZhE6cq0[/ame]

 

Regardless of what Emanuel Steward says, Bowe was more physical than Lewis but perhaps not as strong. Bowe could also fight better inside and at close range. He just had more overall tools on the inside especially the short hooks and he threw and awesome uppercut. Lewis had a good uppercut but it was telegraphed and not compact like Bowe's who could throw two in combination.

 

Sure golata might have lost those bowe fights but bowe did not "win" them, he was beat up both times! More a case of golota losing.

Bowe had huge size over holyfeild and Hide. Although I credit Bowe with coming back to win, Holyfeild in the last fight, the 3rd one, should have knocked out Bowe. I cannot understand or excuse the circumstances why evander did not finish the job but Bowe was lucky he was not not knocked out. The chances of not being finished off in Bowes position was milion to one shot.

 

If you want to watch a world class fighter completely take apart a guy watch Bowe Holyfield 1 and Bowe Gonzalez. This was Riddick Bowe at his absolute best.
Gonzalez might have turned out to be a bust as pro after Riddick Bowe, but Gonzalez had beaten Bowe worse in the amatuers than Lewis did and was undefeated coming in to their fight. The weeks leading up to the fight Gonzalez had done everything he could to get into Bowe's head mentally. Gonzalez was cocky and determined to win himself and took one of the most brutal beatings Ive ever seen in professional boxing. Gonzalez never recovered mentally from that fight and Bowe just flat out destroyed the guy.
Regardless of what you think of Gonzalez, Bowe was great that night and rengerzied Futch to stay with him after Futch was set to leave. The problem was that Bowe lost his discipline again right after that fight. It seems Bowe needed to be motivated to fight and stay in shape, and when he was, he was one of the best heavyweights ever and when he wasnt he was horribly lazy and poor. I dont know that he wasted himself he was an accomplished champion who beat one of the best fighters at his respective peak, but I think a disciplined Bowe who was motivated to train and fight could have gone a lot further in the historical rankings.

 

Bowe at his best was better than Lewis ever was at his, and its not close in my opinion.
Never have I seen so much BS placed on an olympic win. Henry Tillman beat Mike Tyson twice, Jorge Gonzalez beat Bowe, etc. I think Bowe would have massacred Lewis had they fought right after Bowe beat Holyfield in the first fight.

 

Jesus.. Bowe took a lot of lefts in that fight. Luckily for him, he was 25 yrs old and still "fresh". Old Holyfield rocked him as early as the first round (left hook), and Bowe barely even knew it. Big (young) dummy.

But that big guy could put punches together better than anybody else (amongst super heavyweights).

 

He was definitely rocked on many occasions.. that's when you see him low-blowing and rabbit punching in defense. But he was 25 yrs old.. he recovered well, jumped back in, like you would expect from any top flight fighter in their youth. Holyfield was the one that was gassed by the second round (although Bowe was somewhat gassed from Holyfield pushing him around whenever Holyfield wanted a break from throwing punches). This was great age 205 lbs that was due for a pro loss vs great youth 235 lbs (if you think Bowe was great).