Riddick Bowe vs. Joe Louis

I lean towards Louis lighting Bowe up and getting him out of there. Although, the longer it goes on the worse for Louis. It's not out of the question that Bowe lands enough leather of his own to crumble Joe. He's a lot bigger and more durable than Louis.

 

Holyfield was better than old Moore, Walcott and shot Charles who all gave Marciano trouble

 

Well I'd definitely success as not being dominated. If you can drop the other guy, that's success. If you go the distance, lose a very close decision, and so on. Godoy, Galento, Baer, etc; had success vs Louis.

Holyfield was good enough to beat Louis. And Bowe was so many leagues above Tony Galento that he can win too, as seen by the two thirds of voters in the poll.

The pocket isn't mid-range, and mid-range isn't the range Bowe excelled at. He preferred to be up really close. I don't know what you're trying to get across here, Adam. Since for one punch power, Louis is probably closer to Bowe than Foreman. If Holyfield fought toe-to-toe with Foreman he'd have won all the same, so I don't know what your point is.

Your post seems to be mad ramblings annoyed that someone considers another heavyweight a threat.

 

Well thought out synopsis , one which I happen to agree with. keep well.

 

And yet in his prime Bowe lost to the guy that Moorer beat?

 

One third of voters isn't it.

 

Yes, sorry. My mistake there.

 

The fact that Bowe did seem to miss most of the punchers from his day is an interesting thought. Some of it was I’m sure by design and some just coincidence. We never saw what a Lewis right might have done to him as a pro. Nor Tyson, or Ruddock or Moorer or Morrison or Mercer, though he was signed to fight Mercer until Mercer turned up Hog and lost to Jesse. Honestly Holyfield was not a heavy puncher. He was a sharp puncher and threw great combos but was in no way someone we can use to assume what will happen when Louis gets there on Bowe.

Hide has a reputation as a Puncher and he stung Bowe but he’s not even in the same league as Louis in any department. Also lets point out that Hide was a smaller man only around 6'2 and 210 pounds.

Bert Cooper is touted by many boxers who shared the ring with him as a concussive puncher and Bowe stood with him and blew him away in 2 rounds, this is an underrated win by Bowe I believe. Cooper showed up in shape here and was decimated.

The more I rack my brain the more it becomes increasingly evident that Bowe just didn't fight any punchers.

Here's what I know, Tyrell Biggs shook Bowe badly with a left hook, Biggs was past his best days here and NEVER a puncher. And Holyfield damn near knocked him out with one shot. Bowe was tough as hell and had a truck load of guts but a chin is a chin. Golota pounded him relentlessly, but who did Golota ever KO that makes us assume he's some concussive puncher? I can answer that for you, no one.

Bowe is a big guy with what I call clubbing power, he's not a Lennox Lewis who packed legit dynamite. Show me one KO of Bowe's that looks anything like a Lennox Lewis KO highlight reel. Point I'm making here is those that assume Bowe's size equals some sort of super puncher here are incorrect. Look at all the lesser fighters that went rounds with Bowe and we're to assume Louis can't? Louis has legit Dynamite in both fists and throws lethal combos, he's gonna unload into Bowe and there is nothing Bowe and his leaky defense can do about it. I don't like Bowe's chances against such a sharp accurate fast devastating puncher like Louis.

 

I hadn't opened the poll and had to go check

 

There seems to be some speculation about how Holyfield and Bowe stack up against Louis's opponents.

You could argue that Rocky Marciano was better than either of them, but that doesn't help Louis much, so we will take him off the table.

I would say that Louis's best opponents were worse than Holyfield, but better than somebody like Moorer.

They were not as good as Holyfield, but they were good enough to beat him on the day.

So where then does Bowe fit into the picture?

I am not sure that a single win over Holyfield, necessarily makes him better than anybody that Louis beat.

Bowe's resume is actually somewhat inconclusive.

Was he this gee whiz talent that some make him out to be, or just somebody with the right style to beat Holyfield, who came along at the right time?

 

Do you really want to go through the losses of Nathan Mann and Tony Galento to see which is worse than a loss to Holyfield?

 

I don’t really see Holyfield as anymore durable than Louis, since both had good chins, but not great, and both had excellent recuperative abilities, but neither was built to soak up punishment like a Harold Mays, Marion Wilson, Oliver McCall, etc... who all had insane durability.


That said standing directly in front of a much bigger opponent and trading blows is never a good idea. The strategy didn’t work for Holyfield himself and he lost a pretty wide decision to Bowe. I remember at the time Benton, who trained Holyfield at the time being so disgusted with Holyfield ignoring instructions and getting beaten up that he ended his relationship with Holyfield.

In the one fight that Holyfield won against Bowe he was successful by staying in Bowe’s shoulder, beating Bowe to the punch with combinations, and attacking with angles. Bowe had a hard time landing on Holyfield and was getting hit clean, but everytime Holyfield tried to stand directly in front of Bowe he was always overwhelmed by Bowe’s superior strength and durability.

At 4:50 You can hearing the announcers mention Holyfield is making a mistake staying in front of Bowe and at 4:59 Holyfield absorbs a brutal shot to the body. Those kind of direct body shots make your body freeze up. Absorbing too many of these type of shots in the 1st fight made Holyfield weak in the later rounds.

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At 1:03 you can hear Merchant and Foreman criticizing Holyfield’s tactics, since Holyfield is fighting to Bowe’s strengths, which isn’t smart.

Also, 5:25 is a textbook example of why the smaller heavyweight should never attack standing directly in front of the bigger man. Holyfield is attacking Bowe head on while standing directly in front of Bowe and walks right into a right hand, which pretty much ended the fight.

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Joe Louis himself absorbed a lot of unnecessary punishment from Abe Simon (1st fight) and Buddy Baer (1st fght), who both had similar size and power to Bowe, but when wisely attacked from used angles and used his superior handspeed Simon and a Baer didn’t stand a chance.

At 2:27 you can see Joe making the mistake of directly standing in front of Baer and he gets easily overpowered by Buddy.

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This is subjective. Louis beat a prime Max Baer who was a more dangerous puncher than anyone Bowe fought. He flattened John Henry Lewis who probably would have gave Evander a run for his money. There are a lot of overlooked men Louis fought when you research into the names and number of fights his opponents had. Lou Nova. Bob Pastor. Red Burman were good enough to trouble or turn over the majority of guys Bowe beat, if not all of them. And these are just three guys off the top of my head who are mostly considered inconsequential to the Louis resume. Holyfield had a good resume but he lost twice in his prime. He was a likely drugs cheat too.

well Bert Cooper was no better or even as good as Tony Galento and he had similar success against Holyfield as Galento had with Louis. Both Cooper and Galento took terrible beatings for all their success.

Godoy gave Louis trouble but it did not take him two fights to beat him like Moorer took Holyfield to do. Louis was 2-0 with Godoy. Holyfield went life and death with a washed out Mike Dokes and faded Foreman and Granddaddy Holmes. Didn’t they have their successes against Evander? Larry cut his eye.

I think that’s a 50-50 fight. Moore beat Valdes and Baker and Clarence Henry to earn that shot at the title. He also knocked out Harold Johnson. I don’t think Charles necessarily beats Harold Johnson either.

They would have given anyone as much trouble. They beat good fighters to earn their shot. What was the big win that earned Bowe a shot at the title? Pierre Coetzer? Tony Tubbs? It’s laughable.

which particular win of Holyfield shows this? Michael Moorer was a poor mans, southpaw version of Louis. It took Evander two tries to beat him. Holmes and Foreman were serious has beens and far too old to compete in any previous generation. Cooper? Mercer? As champion, Who was actually better than average that Holyfield actually beat?

 

I add that I scored Bowe - Tubbs for Tubbs.