Tokyo Douglas vs the Holyfield that beat Douglas

a hot prospect gets all the right fights at the right time with the right notice, many of them are fights they cant lose, its the nature of the sport, most champions are groomed this way. even the best.

douglas got more "cross road" type fights that bowe bypassed. busters first opponent was 6-0. in fact 2 of his first 4 opponents were unbeaten. in his first year Buster was matched with david bey another prospect far too soon. douglas was matched as "the opponent" against steffen tangsted, tex cobb, jessie ferguson (then 11-0), greg page, unbeaten tony tucker, trevor berbick, oliver mccall when they were all good fighters.

how many times was bowe "the oponent"? apart fom holyfeild how many of riddick's victims were good fighters when he fought them? bowe never fought unbeaten fighters until after he won a title. bert cooper, pinklon thomas and bruce seldon were on losing streaks when bowe fought them. talk about manufactured resume!

 

Berbick was still a good fighter?? Mcall was never a good fighter, and certainly not at this time. Besides these were fights after Douglas had worked his way up and lost in a title bout. Douglas challenged Tucker for his title, just as Bowe did Holyfield. Douglas quit, Bowe won. Ferguson should have never beaten Douglas. Douglas had 23 fights when he faced Ferguson I dont know what your talking about there? Bey had 0 fights when he faced Douglas. Douglas should have never been stopped like that.
Just because a fighters undefeated doesnt make him better. Bowe fought Biggs, Tubbs, Seldon and Coetzer on his way to the title shot, all as good or better than the comp that Douglas faced and he never lost. I dont know what your talking about Douglas being the opponent? He was in the mix with Kings fighters and he was inconsistent against midland level fighters, just like he was his entire career. Bowe on the other hand never lost. There is zero comparison to the two. Bowe was superior to Douglas in a lot of ways.

 

berbick was a real handful for anyone at that point. mccall was never a good fighter? ask Lennox Lewis. mccall had a long winning streak well into his 40's, he’s still a handful now!
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incorrect. it was a vacant title. Michael Spinks ducked tucker and fought Cooney so they striped him. Tucker was the name fighter, #1 contender 38-0 and buster the sacrificial lamb.

Ferguson was then unbeaten. Douglas fought him in a espn tournament to find a contender, it was a competitive cross roads fight that was close. jesse only won 6 of his last 12 when he fought bowe but back when he fought buster he was 11-0. big diffrence.
buster was a 5 fight novice when he got caught aganst david bey who proved to be a dangerous fighter who had a 12 fight ko streak before beating page to earn a shot at holmes within 3 years. douglas was still delivered as the first oponent for david bey in his home town. Douglas was not riding on a manufactured career as the house fighter.

exactly my point. when Douglas fought Tyson he was not unbeaten.

but they had all been exposed and on the way down. neither was the favourite to win. tubbs and coetzer showed ambition but they were not supposed to win. tangsted, tex cobb, berbick, page, mike Williams and mccall were all supposed to win their fights with Douglas.

he was never matched as "name fighter "who was supposed to win in big fights.

list them.

 

Berbick was washed up when he fought Douglas. He was pretty washed up when he fought Tyson

Regardless, Douglas was not a sacrificial lamb, he was a well experienced pro that was certainly on the level of Tucker at the time. The way the fight is marketed is meaningless, Douglas was in the top ten to fight for the title, just as Bowe was by beating Coetzer for the WBA #1 spot.

This is meaningless, Douglas was still the more experienced better fighter, he went on to prove it, he should have beaten Ferguson.

atsch Bey was a zero fight novice making his pro debut. Bowe was never the house fighter, he maintained a promotional free agent, whereas all these fighters your mentioning were Don King promoted managed fighters. If anything they had more of an even playing ground.
Were not comparing the Ferguson that Douglas fought to the one who fought although Ferguson was coming off of probably his best career win against Ray Mercer.

Supposed to win? So because Bowe was a decorated olympian with a lot of potential doesnt mean anything if hes in competitive fights. Maybe Douglas wasnt supposed to win, because he wasnt that good? He was inconsistent in losing to fighters he shouldnt have all along.

Thats because he was never that good. So he should have been taken down to the tomato can level so he could be matched as the "name fighter". Remember this a guy who lost to the likes of Jesse Ferguson and Mike White.

Heart, power, overall ability, infighting, pedigree everything. If he wasnt he would have lost fights early in his career like Douglas did. His resume is no worse than Douglas', its better.

 

berbick was closer to title form than tubbs was when he fought bowe.

on paper its closer to a 50-50 fight than anything bowe was taking part in before fighting for a title. bowes first 50-50 test was posibly holyfeild who beat him in the return.

any guy having his pro debut in his home town is a hard guy to beat. my point is bey wasnt nobody, he went on a KO streak and earned his crack at a title.

A decorated Olympian gets more breaks and its utter claptrap to say it isn’t. Ask not how bowe does against Douglas’s opponents ask how Douglas does against bowes guys. The same. They are pretty close.

We are! This is an example of how different it is for guys with no name. I bet Douglas would rather fight Ferguson when he was losing as many fights as he was winning.

Good point, re that point about how bowe gets on against Douglas’s guys. There is a reason bowe did not fight any ambitious unbeaten fighters, it’s because there was a clearer, safer route to the title.

there is a right time and a wrong time to fight "the likes" of those fighters. Had Douglas went down the tomato can route that bowe did he would have had the same career as bowe. No better, just the same. He still would have become disillusioned and unmotivated but it would have happened at the time it did with bowe. there is an upside to a career and a downside. there is a right time to fight somebody. there is a wrong time to fight somebody. it takes a very short examination of the two careers to work out bowe got all his guys at the right time and douglas fought most guys at the wrong time.

Bowe would not need those qualities to beat those early guys he beat up but he would have had he fought Douglas’s guys. Bowe and Douglas were even, both skilful fighters with equal qualities. one guy got the breaks and one did not.

 

Bowe would have destroyed all the opponents Douglas lost to had they fought at the very same time in Bowes career. I dont agree with your post.

If Douglas was a better fighter he should have won, it had nothing to do with when and where Douglas fought them, because in all cases, he was the younger or more experienced fighter. Bowe was fighting the likes of Tubbs, Seldon, Thomas, Biggs, Cooper and Coetzer with comparable experience.
In one post your saying Berbick was tough and experienced and in another, proven fighters with less wear and tear were already exposed to be on the downslide of their career when Bowe fought them. It makes little sense.

What a load of crap

 

we have to agree to disagree. how will we ever know bowe could beat 2 unbeaten fighters in his first 4 fights? how will we ever know bowe with just 5 pro fights could destroy a future title chalenger on his debut in his hometown? How will we know if he could beat a contender at 3 days notice? we will never know because bowe was groomed never to have a 50-50 fight until he fought for the title. he had the advantage going into all his fights.

its not always that black and white, if my aunt grew a **** she would be my uncle. page, mcall and berbick were beter than seldon, biggs and losing thomas. maybe coezer was beter than a washed up biggs but he dont beat mccall or those other guys. its a fact that a lot of people think tubbs beat bowe. there wasnt much between tubbs and page but then nobody says buster did not beat page...

berbick was knocked out by bernardo mercado and a peak ATG in tyson. outside of those wins berbick was a real wild card who nobody wanted to fight. he beat a peak thomas when thomas was regarded as the best in the world. he gave everyone a tough time, a real who needs him kind of guy. name one guy with that kind of rep who bowe fought before holyfeild? just ask rock newman.:hey