^ Because I recognize what you could not.. physical prowess. No big man except for Douglas could match his abilities. And your concern for accomplishments is where you have gone wrong as with so many before you because that's all you look for. You go on about the meagerness of his early wins but the fact is Bowe went to the top also by beating everybody's main man and future three time heavyweight champ. Let me ask you, did Terry Norris have a great resume before the leonard thrashing? I had the utmost confidence in Terry before the fight. I knew what he was going to do to Ray. The three losses didn't throw me off the way it did with you. Nor did the accomplishments of Leonard which obviously fooled you. yet looked what happened in the fight itself. And you could point likewise with George Foreman. Month after month and all the experts would talk about were the mediocrity of his opponents the way you just did with Bowe. Again, another blowout because the experts didn't see coming and failed to look at other factors (the obvious-George's size and strength, Frazier's short career and one handed approach, no jab, easy to hit) and from what I gather, still couldn't figure out why it happened months later. And evidently you suffer from the same problem and simply don't know what things to look for in a fighter.
As I thought you've got nothing to back up your bull**** with except pointless Ray Leonard-Terry Norris comparisons. I'll concede Bowe had decent tools but his defense was terrible (evidenced by him being punch drunk in less than 40 fights),his power was good but not great,and he never proved to me that he could beat a big,skilled,powerful fighter hence his avoidance of Lewis.In fact the only time he met a big,powerful,prime heavyweight was against Golota and we know how that turned out and Golota's nothing much to write home about. Bowe could've answered a lot of questions about himself if he'd met a Lewis or even a Mercer but he didn't and I refuse to rank him highly on what he may have been physically capable of doing but didn't do. I mightn't know what things to look for in a fighter but at least I don't see or make up things that aren't there as you so obviously do with Riddick Bowe.
Agreed, although I think Bowe was a very good fighter with a lot of physical tools and potential, he left behind too many question marks. In 1991, when Bowe was around 22-0, he met a veteran Tony Tubbs, who was more or less on the comeback trail. Tubbs showed up in fairly good shape, but was past his prime, and proceeded to give Bowe a boxing lesson that left a lot of people feeling like Riddick had lost. Evander Holyfield defeated him their rematch in 1993, and two years later dropped Bowe before being TKO'd. Had Evander not been stricken with hepatitis, and taken the time off that he did, Holy might have finished him. Finally, we all know what happened in both the golata fights. This is to say nothing about what might have happened had he faced a peak Lewis, or someone of the sorts. Bowe had some good credentials. He was a 1988 olympian, only officially lost once in 45 pro fights, and was never knocked out. He had two victories over an all time great heavy/cruiser. And had additional wins over some decent young fighters such as Hide, Donald, Gonzalez, Seldon, and Coetzer. While these may be some valid career highlights, they are simply not enough to give him an all time great rating that breaches the top 10. To be fair, I'd probably rate Bowe somewhere between about 15-25.
He was a very good fighter but Rooster's ranking of him is out of all proportion to his accomplishments and needs to be addressed. The fact he couldn't come up with a justifiction for this high ranking of Bowe except to bring up a Ray Leonard comparison again and some gibberish about George Foreman just shows how Rooster is all talk as usual.
Well, by now you know that even if this were a conversation about James Jeffries, Rooster would find a way to incorporate Leonard into the topic. You just have to learn to ignore him.
Don't buy into their lies Warrior. Regurgitate is what the other side does. I don't regurgitate. I restate-facts that is. And the fact is Terry whipped Leonard at his own game--speed. The crowd came to see the master school the upstart but the leonard didn't really know what he was getting into so he fell apart quickly-couldn't take the heat. Taking on the young lions got him into a whole lot of ****.
