The Riddick Bowe who beat Holyfield in their first fight vs Lennox Lewis who beat

These Lennox threads go on forever, The only important thing to know in this whole thing is Bowe ducked Lewis. Thats it, end of.

 

You Sir are delussional if you think this decision didn't affect both Bowe's financial well being and his legacy in the sport. If Bowe had won that fight, we'd probably be talking about where he stands in relation to Holyfield, Tyson and Lewis, he would have a resonable good claim at perhaps being at the top of this list because he would have beaten Holyfield twice and Lewis once. Instead he's considered an also ran in this debate and is clearing not discussed in the same league as the other 3 fighters, that is how important his decision not to fight Lewis was, and that's not even considering what we the fans wanted.

BTW, just for clarification, I never once said in my post that Bowe was afraid of Lewis. I don't pin these type of accusations on any fighters because (a) I don't think most really are and (b) the decision as to who they fight is often out of their hands. But having said that, I also think that if Bowe as adament about fighting Lewis and avenging his Olympic defeat it would have happened. And further to that, it's pretty damn hard for you or anyone else to make a case that this wasn't in his financial best interest either. And lastly, since he had already agreed to fight the winner of Ruddock - Lewis prior to the Holyfield fight, it wasn't even a decision he or his management were in a position to make.

 

As to whether or not there was an agreement, I found this on the web which were comments issued by the WBC.

"Regarding the events of the last several months that forced Mike Tyson to relinquish the WBC heavyweight world title and the WBC to withdraw its recognition of him as champion, WBC president Jose Sulaiman issued this statement:
"The following is a brief report to put into perspective the recent years, and recent events, of the heavyweight division in the WBC.

"After Mike Tyson lost the championship to Buster Douglas in February, 1990, the WBC ordered a mandatory defense between the new champion and No. 1 ranked Evander Holyfield with the condition, due to the controversial circumstances of the Tyson vs Douglas fight, that the winner fight Tyson next. After nearly two years as the No. 1 contender without receiving an opportunity to fight for the title, Tyson signed to fight Holyfield, but the fight was cancelled when Tyson suffered a rib injury. Before they could fight, and while he was still the No. 1 ranked official challenger to the title, Tyson was imprisoned, and only then taken out of the WBC ratings.

"While he was incarcerated, the WBC ordered a title eliminator between No. 1 ranked Razor Ruddock and No. 2 ranked Riddick Bowe, which was accepted by both in writing. After making such commitment, Bowe decided to pull out of the agreement and instead fight Pierre Coetzer of South Africa. The WBC then ordered the eliminator to be between Ruddock and No. 3 ranked Lennox Lewis, with the winner to be the official challenger for the world championship; Lewis won the fight. Main Events, who had the promotional rights to Holyfield, informed the WBC that Holyfield would not fight Lewis because he did not have a marketable name, but would fight Bowe instead. The Holyfield vs Bowe fight was authorized by the WBC with the condition that the winner fight Lewis. Bowe won the title, but instead of honoring his written agreement to fight Lewis, he refused to pay the WBC sanctioning fee and threw the championship belt into a London waste basket. "

 

Your looking at it from the point of view that Lewis would have gone on to accomplish what he did. The difference was Holyfield was already an established great fighter, whereas Lewis was still very green especially from a drawing point. Had Bowe beaten Lewis like he did Jorge Luiz Gonzalez for example (which did nothing for Bowe's legacy), things could have played out different for Lewis and possibly meant very little for Bowe as well. Financially the fight would have meant a lot more to both fighters had it happened LATER when both were established more.

 

True enough, there's a fair amount of hindsite in my comments. But obviously one can't predict the future enough to say they would have made more money in the future, because they never ended up fighting. Point being, the fight should have happened when it did, because any future benefit analysis was obviously speculative. I'm actually more upset about it from a fans perspective than anything else. As far as I'm concerned I was robbed of one of the best match ups that could have taken place.

 

So Bowe actually ducked Ruddock before he ducked Lewis.

He must have headed straight for the fridge and some comfort food when he saw what Lewis did to Ruddock.

If Bowe didnt duck Lewis he would have made it clear he was not fighting the winner of Lewis Ruddock before Lewis blasted Ruddock away NOT after!
That is the crux of the argument - Imagine Froch gets to the final of the super 6 tourny and then refuses to fight Kessler of who ever - Will we have apologists 10 years from now justifying his actions claiming he would have won anyway...These are the folk ruining boxing!

 

What if you were a fighter and Evander Holyfield called you up and said I want you for my next opponent and Im the undisputed heavyweight champion. You dont have to fight Ruddock for nothing, you can fight me for all the titles, what would you do?atsch

Holyfield was also suppsoed to fight Ruddock, and chose to fight Bowe instead.

 

Well after that fight I would have fought Lewis, to prove I was the best, to avenge my loss in the Olympics and to give the fans a great fight, one that would prove once and for all who the true champ was. Simple answer.

 

Dempsey avoided Blacks as Bowe avoided Canadians

 

True

And no ammount of spin and looking for excuses can change this.

 

It seems Bowe turned Rudduck down for Coetzer NOT Holyfield, before a Holyfield fight was agreed

 

The problem is there is so much behind the scenes crap that nobody knows. There's a reason they had so much disdain for the WBC and Lewis holding the title only added more fuel to the fire.

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Well if they had all the paddles, why did they sink like rocks..lol

As for there disdain about Lewis holding the WBC title it seems to me they were in a position to do something about that and chose not to. iNSTEAD.........

THEY GAVE HIM THE DAMN BELT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Kind of interesting when you think about that after losing two straight to Tyson, Ruddock arose as the #1 contender of the WBC by an internal voteatsch. King definitely had a huge influence over Suliaman, and it was proven more by the fighters Lewis had to face while holding the title. He fought Tucker, Mcall, Butler, and Jackson, all Don King owned fighters. so having the WBC title meant you had to deal with King too, which was a mess.

 

That quote basically shows the Holyfield fight wasnt there when Newman/Bowe turned down Rudduck, all they had to do was fight Rudduck for more money and they'd be mandatory to Holyfield anyway but Newman wanted the easy option. All in all they are lucky they got the title shot with the way they acted. Bowe didnt need to sign himself away to King to fight Rudduck, Lewis didnt