What happened to Big Daddy? He wins the WBO HW title against undefeated Hyde and Gonzales after winning the rest of the titles a few years earlier...then in a matter of a few months has no title against Holyfield same year and then twice against Galotta next year :huh He then falls off the map for 8 years then comes back for 3 nothing fights then hes gone again. Ended up with a 43 - 1 record (only loss against a prime Holyfield) How good was he?
Riddick was very good, an outstanding inside fighter for a man of his size and at his best a genuine threat to any heavyweight. However he liked eating more than training and also had mental health problems resulting in him abducting his own family and a (very) short stint in the US Marines. All in all he was a wasted talent.
Good enough to know he couldn't beat Big George, Iron Mike, or Lennox Lewis. He was however strong enough to impose himself on smaller guys like Holy, but stylistically he was a weak fighter who could only maintain the level of greatness against B class guys like hide and dokes. Look at his wins list on Boxrec and youll see none of the greats he failed to make fights against.
His skill set was very impressive, he was calm and relaxed but had a killer right hand I still dont understand why he vacated the WBC title in order to duck Lewis, what a ***** move. He could have beaten Lewis at that time
Nah there was more to it than that. If you watch the olympic fight it was even a BS stoppage. It had more to do with the WBC and HBO than Bowe just ducking Lewis but it sure did make Bowe look stupid. As someone said, he was more than ready to beat that version of Lewis and should have fought him. Bowe was a very skilled fighter, with a poor work ethic, but in 92 he was in shape.
You know what I meant. Im not a fukking english professor. He failed to make fights with 7 of the top 10 fighters in his day. LL MT Morrison Big George Mercer Witherspoon Sanders And we could probably figure another 7 of the top 20. Chris Byrd, Tua, Ruiz, Rock, Al COle, Mike Grant, or Michael Moorer. There were sooo many fights he coulda taken, but somehow managed to avoid all 14 of these top fighters.
A class move by Bowe and Newman. Only a couple of weeks earlier in London, Bowe's old Olympic rival [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennox_Lewis"]Lennox Lewis[/ame] knocked out Canadian [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donovan_Ruddock"]Donovan "Razor" Ruddock[/ame] in 2 rounds, establishing himself as the WBC's #1 contender. The Bowe/Holyfield and Lewis/Ruddock fights were part of a mini-tournament where all 4 fighters agreed that the two winners would meet each other for the championship. Bowe's manager Rock Newman made a proposal that the $32million purse HBO were offering be split 90-10 in Bowe's favor, an "absurd" offer which Lewis rejected.[5] Lewis's manager Frank Maloney rejected another offer of $2million for Lewis to fight on a Bowe undercard, citing his distrust of the Bowe camp after the aforementioned negotiations. So in a move that would hurt Bowe's image he held a press conference in which he dumped the WBC belt in a bin rather than fight [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennox_Lewis"]Lewis[/ame].[6] The famous trash can incident did little to denigrate [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennox_Lewis"]Lennox Lewis[/ame] or the WBC as he had hoped it would.
I was a little kid back then but this situation still seems weird to me. Why could they not agree on a 50/50 split, 90/10 is absurd indeed of course lennox rejected it. I guess he had bad pr as well throwing that belt away makes you seem ***** and scared instead of not caring for the belt.
