Riddick Bowe vs Lennox Lewis 1993

Agreed 100%

Bowe would of minced him. Its delusional to think Lewis could beat Bowe after the performance he gave against old , washed up Tony Tucker.
Years later Mercer drew him into a slug fest and would of got the win if it was a normal 12 rounder. Mercer wasn't on Bowe's level.
Lewis was flattened twice in his career by single shots. Bowe was never stopped once.

A lot is said about Bowe's defense but Lewis had no better if not worse defense.
Hands always down low. No head movement. He could not avoid shots from Vitali to save his life. Grabbing guys was his defense. No good against Bowe. He would of been exposed.

 

:rofl

Lewis had terrible footwork back then. Crossing his legs. Awful balance. Two left feet. Slow as a snail.

Bowe had far better movement and its not even close.

 

Gonzalez beat Bowe in the ams but got totally destroyed when he met him in the pros.

 

Bowe was 21.

As for not being hurt...in the post fight interview Bowe said that Lewis had "shook me up pretty much".

The facts & Bowe's version of events don't quite tally up with what you want to believe.

 

Why didn't you quote him fully? After he said that, he said it wasn't enough to stop the fight.
Bowe complained he didn't get his 8 count and he clearly said he was ok and it was stopped too early.

At the end of the fight he was holding up his arms as if to say: what the hell just happened

 

Bowe was hardly likely to concede the stoppage was legit was he? What I've quoted there was as close to a confession as you are likely to get - most fighters can't even admit they've been hurt - Bowe wasn't even able to deny it.

I thought Bowe was unconvincing in the interview...as for the stoppage...Bowe's body language looked to me like he didn't want to continue.


Anyway, in the pros, if Bowe had wanted to fight Lewis he could have - he held ALL the belts,he was in control of the situation, to get the title Lewis would have had to fought Bowe as he held all the belts.

Giving up the WBC belt gave Bowe the "out" he was looking for.

 

What you are doing is talking on Bowe's behalf. Whats counts is what Bowe said himself , not your interpertation of what you want to believe.

How the fight played out matches up exactly to how Bowe describes it. A premature stoppage with no 8 count in a fight he was competative in.
He didn't complain further because his coaches told him to be cool.
'I had to leave it at that'

No, he wasn't in control of any situation.

The WBC and Lewis were dictating terms to him. Not the other way around. Lewis was offered 3 million to fight Bowe for the chance to become the HW champion. He refused to wait untill Bowe was stripped so he could pick the belt out of the bin and defend it against Tucker who came out of rehab instead of a training camp.

 

Dino - I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one:good

 

It's amateur boxing, not the pros and he certainly was hurt.

 

Lewis would beat Bowe ten times out of ten Bowe was just to slow, yes he had a good jab but his movement was poor and that's where Lennox would win the fight and would have stopped Bowe by the 8th. No amount of fantasy talk however alters the fact that Bowe ran a mile from Lennox, hence why he threw his belt in the garbage bin that is inexcusable for a boxer and whether it was down to Bowe or his manipulative manager that will hurt him for the rest of is life.

 

Oh yes I remember this. Not only Gonzalez won, but he knocked Bowe out cold in amateurs, that was not Lewis - Bowe stoppage. Amateur fights are irrelevant in pro boxing.

 

If Bowe wanted to avenge his Olympic loss he wouldn't have dumped the WBC belt and backed out of the fight. He got his shot at Holyfield because the WBC bumped him above Ruddock - who he also ducked - with the proviso that the winner of Holyfield/Bowe would fight the winner of Lewis/Ruddock. None of the other three would have backed out of the deal like Bowe did. He didn't want the fight at all and wasn't motivated in anyway by any need to avenge himself from the Olympics.

 

Bowe didn't make the decisions , Newman did , so his motivation can' be questioned. He begged for a fight with Foreman , there is no reason why he wouldn't want to get even with Lewis. 'I owe him one' Lewis gave nobody any reason to fear him back then.

 

"I don't know when they'll fight," Newman said. "But I know this. They say we didn't offer them enough money. Okay, even if that were true, you take the fight if you know in your heart you can win it. Riddick didn't always make what he wanted, but we knew he would be the champ one day, and that made it all worth while.

 

Just one example of the demands Lewis and his team were demanding. Pricing themselves out. The Lewis fight was nowhere near as big as the Holyfield fight.