Was Riddick Bowe a wasted talent?

Assuming there was a way he could have avoided the early CTE he ended up with, he was a huge waste. Had everything to be an ATG. Size, skill, power, chin, heart.

 

I think Riddick had it hard growing up man. But he made the most of it. From the Bedford Stuyvesant hood in Brooklyn with such others as Mike Tyson and Larry King came from there too. Bowe also had a brother who died from HIV I heard, a very tough pill to swallow.

For being a food a holic, not fully preparing himself in training or conditioning mixed up with matters of the heart (he kidnapped his family once didn't he? ) Which I'm assuming is no longer a vice, and also his humility: blamed noone for his slurred speech. In fact he was talking about how God must have humbled him for doing something bad, by making him lose a part of his faculties.

His notoriety for the Holyfield fights and the world tour with rock Newman were awesome man. I just wish he woulda went out on a better note than those golota fights! Lord bless him, man!

 

Medaling in the 1988 Olympics, becoming heavyweight champion of the world and retiring with a pro record of 44-1 or whatever it was is pretty damn successful. I don’t have a problem with how his career turned out. But yes he could have trained more and eaten less. And his defense left much to be desired and probably led to his being brain damaged. If the above things were different he might have stayed champ a while and built a bigger legacy.

 

Emmanuel Stewart said Riddick Bowe was the most talented boxer he had ever seen second to Muhammad Ali. After the first Evander Holyfield fight Bowe shouted to Lennox Lewis "I want you next" Lewis replied " sign the contract". Everyone expected greatness after the Holyfield fight but when Rock Newman offered Frank Maloney a small percentage of the purse for the fight Maloney declined but then later agreed to the original offer but by this time Newman said it was to late as he had signed a television contract with HBO Time-Warner. Bowe then fought an antiquated and washed up Michael Dokes and Jesse Ferguson. Eddie Futch said Bowe in the gym during that time was lackadaisical, sloppy and unmotivated. Initially Eddie Futch was reluctant to train Bowe but was impressed with his attitude and mentality before the first Holyfield fight. After that Bowe began to make a lot of money and pretty much didn't make the same effort again he did training for Holyfield in 1993. If Newman and Maloney had been able to get the Lewis fight made Bowe may have been motivated to train hard to rectify the loss from the Olympics and he might have had a different career but because HBO offered big money to Newman they went down that route and the rest is history.

 

He even did some great Muhammad Ali and Ronald Reagan impressions Lol.

 

A tricky one, you have to assume that the versions we actually saw in the ring were the best versions possible, if that's the case how can anyone say the talent was wasted, I mean what more could he have done?

Maybe his body wasn't programmed to take a lot of punishment and punishment he took, those bouts with Holyfield were wars, they likely took more out of his health bar than we imagined.