Really... I haven't seen that one yet, but I just read "Becoming Holyfield" a few months back and he said that Bowe was the hardest puncher he had ever been hit by.
For the record, I read a GQ magazine article from the late 90's in which Holyfield stated that the hardest puncher that he had ever faced was Riddick Bowe. This article took place when Holyfield was in training for his first fight with Lennox Lewis. Holyfield also said that the smartest, trickiest fighter that he had ever faced was Larry Holmes.
Decent list this, but I would not put Rahman in there. For me, Bowe's outside the top 20. Not by a whole lot, but outside it. Top 30 isn't unreasonable.
What Bowe had in his day was power and durability. He could trade with a guy, soak up what was coming back and make his shots count. A top fighter with very good power.
Langford and Archie Moore don't belong in the Top 5. Langford was the Eric Esch of the 1920ies, merely KOing bums. Even the Ring magazine is blind to that fact. I am nearly finished with my Ranking Calculation Software. I have already 30000+ boxers in the database and 350000+ fights. I am calculating a boxer's quality by boxer's-Win-Fight-ratio * boxer's-KO-ratio * average-opponents'-quality (The opponents' quality is also calculated by WinFight-ratio*KOratio.) This calculation is not perfect (see above, I wrote that it's not ready yet), but gives you already now a Who's Who of boxing in the top places. At the top are: Lennox Lewis Wladimir Klitschko Vitali Klitschko David Haye Muhammad Ali Mike Tyson Roy Jones Jr Bruno Foreman Calzaghe ... Thus this simple formula gives you the Who's Who of All-Time-Greatest boxers and thus proves that I am on the right path. Bowe is around #10 to #20. Lucian Bute (a fighter I didn't hear of before) is around #10. Thus maybe the next big thing in super middleweight. There will be some adjustment (because so far I didn't take into account a lot of other stats like weight and age difference and the opponents' opponents), but this gives you already the trend. A nice side effect of my database is that I can calculate interesting stuff like "biggest age difference" (Shavers vs Yates, 30+ years) and "biggest combined weight" (McSparren vs Berry, 754 lbs) etc. Sam Langford is approximately at #200, where he OBJECTIVELY belongs because of his abysmal opponents. That just tells you how WRONG the Ring gets it, since they don't see any difference in winning against good opponents and winning against bad opoonents. The same applies to Archie Moore (around #100) and his abysmal opponents. See also http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1993772&postcount=286 By the way, if you would just go by the KO-Ratio * WinFight-Ratio (= a toplist without considering the average quality of opponents), then Victor Oganov would be #1, LaMar Clark #6. Thus such calculation is obviously FLAWED. If you want to know who has fought against the best opponents (= a toplist not considering the own quality but just consider your opponents' quality) then here's the list: Lennox Lewis Evan Fields Ali Roy Jones Jr Wladimir Klitschko Tyson Tarver Vitali Klitschko ... Thus such a formula results in what we already knew: That Lennox, Evan Fields, Ali etc fought the best that were available. Tua is approx #15, Sam Peter is approx #25, Valuev #30, Corrie Sanders #40, Danny Williams #60, but these are active fighters thus their positions will change after their next fights. Just as a side note: I consider only fighters with 20+ fights (= fighters with a somewhat representable record). Moreover Jimmy Wilde (from your Ring's toplist) is flyweight, but I didn't consider anything below 160.
You are training in the same gym as Riddick is for his comeback!!!!!!!! If this is so, I need to talk to you straight away. Send me a personal message please. Thank you.
Last thing i heard, Bowe is in Germany today, and training for a fight on the undercard of Klitschko-Peter (?)
Bruno was a god damned murderous puncher. He didn't get his shots in as clean as Lennox or Tyson so some might underestimate his power. For raw power he probably had them all beat. Just not execution wise.
I can't even be bothered explaining that I didn't write that list I am being quoted as having written, because no words are needed when you're speaking to a man who compares Sam Langford to Butterbean. I didn't even read the rest of your post, because either you are taking the ****, or are spectacularly ******ed. Either way, cheers for the laugh!!
riddick bowe was no power puncher......he looped his right hand.....he only had 2 great showings...1st fight with holy and jorge luis gonzales.....the rest he never really trained....even in the pierre coetzer fight he was up too 245 lbs....ruddock...shavers...tua...lewis...all hit harder than bowe. bowe is not a top 20 heavyweight.:smoke:smoke:smoke