Was he really that competitive against Holyfield though? Sure, he lasted the distance, but I can't recall him winning more than 2 or 3 rounds. Look what Bowe did with the same Evander (first fight.)
Comfortable enough UD for Bowe, perhaps an outside chance of a late stoppage (though I can't see it). Peak-for-peak might well be a different matter. Bowe is sure as hell capable of outboxing Foreman but would get drawn into a brawl, I think and that would cost him. In this case Foreman stops him during the mid-rounds IMO.
True that. Foreman, despite his many shortcomings, was a beast in his prime. If you hurt him, you were in deep ****.
Foreman gets beat up badly.. so does Bowe, though. He won't stay away from Foreman who will still land a lot of punches. But Bowe's handspeed, punch output and stamina might make it a Stewart-esque night for Foreman.
Yep. We all knew how hellishly durable Frazier was and yet he simply got manhandled, decked repeatedly and hurt very badly. Bowe has the skills at his best and was a fine fighter, but his macho for the sake of it attitude would have been his downfall against massive punchers like Tyson, Lewis, Liston and Foreman etc. Any guys looking to make it an exclusively inside fight against Foreman are asking for big trouble (perhaps with the exception of Tyson, given his insane handspeed). If Holyfield had the concussive power of those guys he'd have won each of the three fights IMO.
Looking at that fight rationally with an unbiased eye, it was a total mismatch! Holyfield's hand speed was just way too much for Foreman to deal with. Although Bowe wasn't as fast as Holyfield, he was much bigger and stronger, and he had more tools to bother Foreman with - punching power, reach, height.
If this was the Goerge Foreman in the best part of his comeback around 1991, then it goes the distance with Bowe winning a decision, but it may not be as wide as people think. Bowe did not easily bully around other big men the way he did against fighters who were smaller than him. Additionally, Riddick was hurt badly by the stiff strait jab of Golata, and Foreman had a fairly powerful jab in his comeback too. Also, these guys would have a fair amount of time wrestling on the inside, and thats when Goerge would give him those little gut checks that he always liked to do on the clinches. On the otherhand, if this were the Foreman of the latter part of his comeback who fought Alxel Shcultz and Lou Savarese, then I think Bowe wins by a wider decision and even leaves George's face looking ugly.
I don't think Bowe brawled because he had macho delusions, a need to prove himself... I honestly just think he was too damned dumb to think on his feet sometimes. He'd fall asleep in the ring and need to be force fed what to do between rounds. He seemed to fight the fight of the person he was going against, a lot.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I think the Foreman who fought Briggs and Savarese was just as good as any earlier version of Foreman during his comeback. He just seemed more fluid and his overall boxing ability seemed better.
Assuming it's 1974-75 Foreman, I've got to go with Big George. It's hard for me to imagine anybody tangling with him on the inside and living to talk about it. I guess it would all come down to how well Big Daddy could use "rope-a-dope"......
I think Bowe had good skills for a Big man but he got hit too much to get hit by Foreman.....enough to make you slur
Bowe was a better inside fighter than Foreman though, and Foreman wasn't really an in-fighter himself, just a power puncher who relied on pushing off for space to get off his big shots.
He could fight the opponent's fight with any of the opponents of the era IMO, at his best anyway. I genuinely think a peak Bowe was one of the most talented HW's of all time.