Riddick Bowe's ATG status...

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Heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe will fight former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, at least in court.
Bowe, his manager Rock Newman and his promoter, Spencer Promotions Inc. filed a $25 million suit against Dan Duva and his company, Main Events, as well as manager Shelly Finkel and Holyfield. The 24-page complaint, filed yesterday in United States District Court in Manhattan charged Duva and Main Events with breach of contract, interference with prospective economic advantage and breach of fiduciary duty.
Newman accused Duva and Main Events of trying to coerce various boxing sanctioning bodies like the International Boxing Federation into stripping Bowe of his titles, keeping him from fighting Tommy Morrison for a purse Newman estimated at $30 million and forcing Bowe to fight either Michael Moorer or Holyfield, both promoted by Main Events, for smaller purses.
"They continue to manipulate in their own selfish, greedy interests," Newman said. "There is a conflict of interest here."
Since Bowe beat Holyfield last year and took the heavyweight title, Main Events was to co-promote three of Bowe's title fights and receive 22 percent of all promotional fees by a contract agreement.
But Newman claims Duva is not acting in good faith or in the best interests of Bowe.
Bowe's best interests, according to Newman, means fighting Morrison and Lennox Lewis, fighters not represented by Main Events or Duva.
A Bowe-Morrison or Bowe-Lewis fight would mean more public interest and more money, Newman said.
Duva dismissed the suit as negotiations ploy" to get him to renegotiate the terms of the Holyfield fight.
"We suspected from the beginning Rock Newman did not want to live up to the contract he made," said Duva.
Bowe said he would like to fight Holyfield again, but his top choices were Lewis and Morrison.
"It's a conspiracy," Bowe said. "They don't want us to get the recognition we deserve."

 

It wasn't truly a tournament, but the Ruddock-Lewis fight was for the right to fight the WBC champion who was the winner of Bowe-Holyfield. Bowe won, and then refused to fight Lewis.

As for Lewis-Byrd, Byrd was a complete non threat to Lewis. Byrd with his style simply can't beat Super Heavies with skills, watch him get dominated by Wlad and Vitali. Entirely different reason for Lewis not fighting Byrd and Bowe avoiding Lewis and fighting Dokes.

 

You cant just assume that he automatically wins. Thats like assuming Bowe would automatically lose to Lewis since Lewis beat him in the olympics, not taking into consideration that Bowe was trained his entire pro career by Eddie Futch and changed his fighting style.
Actually if you read the articles that I posted, it was Holyfield who didnt want to fight Lewis not Bowe. Bowe was supposed to fight Ruddock in the first place and opted for the #1 spot of the WBA by facing Coetzer. Holyfield than rejected Lewis because of lack of name recognition to fight Bowe. The WBC agreed to let that happen if the winner fought Lewis next.

 

Lewis not fighting Byrd in '02, or Ruiz in '00 for that matter, doesn't really mean the same as Bowe not fighting Lewis. I'm not trying to have double standards, there are just certain things Lewis offered in '93 that those two didn't later on.

Byrd and Ruiz did not have an amateur knockout win over Lewis on the biggest amateur stage of them all. Byrd and Ruiz were not unbeaten. Byrd and Ruiz had not just knocked out a #1 contender and one of if not the most feared puncher in the whole division. Byrd and Ruiz did not offer that spectacle of a large challenger against the large champion. Byrd and Ruiz did not offer up the chance of a big knockout. Byrd and Ruiz did not have the unusual marketability of being a British fighter. Byrd and Ruiz didn't even have some kind of personal vendetta with Lewis.

I think a 37-year-old Lewis does have a struggle with Byrd actually, due to his declining movement. He may have toiled to get enough shots in to finally grind Byrd down, I think Byrd could've made the full 12 losing just to Lewis's heavier firepower and it would've been a pretty blah fight...a big letdown after the high of the Tyson win. But I think he still wins.

And Ruiz in '00 is just a horrible style match-up for Ruiz. Can't bumrush him, can't stay outside and outjab him, can't do the jab & grab as Lewis would lean all over him in the clinch and wear him down. Not good.

 

Thats fair to say, but let me ask you. Do you think the fight between Lewis and Bowe would have gotten bigger if Lewis had beaten Mcall? Bowe was very close to signing to fight Lewis after the Mcall fight.

 

Just watched Bowe-Golota II again. It was really sickening the punishment Bowe took. Don't know if I've ever seen anything like it. He was as tough as anyone to ever lace them up, that's for sure. But being that tough and that relatively easy to hit is a bad combination. A lot of him stayed in that ring.

 

He chickened out, threw a belt in a trash can, and split a title taht Tyson and Holyfield worked so hard to keep unifed.

Besides Holyfield, name anyone he ever looked good agaisnt? Tubss beat him, and Golota lost twice but hurt him bad.

He is a piece of ****. Lower end of top 30.

 

Yeah, it definitely took a lot to get Bowe out of there, which was bad for his health in the long run.

 

Riddick Bowe, IMO, was an ATG talent... but that's not what makes a great fighter.

 

This is my position in a nutshell.

He just didn't do enough to qualify as an ATG. It's really as simple as that.
Beating Holyfield twice was a fine accomplishment, but that alone just isn't enough.

I can remember the dismay from the media when he signed to fight Dokes, who was a complete shell at that point. The fight was predictably a mismatch.
Then, even worse, he fights Jesse Ferguson after that. One easy 'gimme' defense I can understand, but two? And one right after the other? His next fight was against Holy, a guy he had already beaten.
Bowe was hardly taking risks in there...

 

And the Holyfield fight only happened due to HBO.

It's not so much that Bowe didn't want to fight Holy as he (or Newman) saw no point in it. He thought the 'gargoyle', his quote, was finished.

But HBO were unhappy with the response to (and quality of) the Dokes and Fergsuon fights so they wanted to push a name fighter in there. There was a lot of dough plus contractual rights put on the table and that worked. Bowe and Newman saw it as a big payday and an easy fight.

Remember that Holy had looked lacklustre against a safety-conscious Stewart in their rematch in mid-93. A bit of a similar case to the whole Czyz-Tyson situation in a way.