What is your opinion of Andrew Golota

Nope, it was Piotr Bialostocki .

 

Exactly! Andy's dad died when the future heavyweight was 5. If only the Warsaw-born fighter had a Polish Cus D'Amato...

 

He only made the annual ratings 4 times.

 

Golota is a bit over rated due to him pounding on an under focused Bowe.

Yes, he could box well, but I saw most of his fights, and he wasn't the good of a boxer, often having just enough to win.

His early blow out to Lewis, Brewster and Tyson tell me more. As a fighter, he was dirty and cheap. A low blow artist, a mean head butter, and a biter.

The head but helped him win a close fight and the bite see him from a knockout.

 

So Andy notched 41 official Ws, and from what I remember, when he won, he won...not barely but convincingly. Against Tyson his injuries were substantiated by a doctor afterwards, and his own trainer Al Certo even apologized for how he treated the Pole. But I'll give you the Brewster blowout, no excuses for that I admit, although a shot of lidocaine is what did Golota in against Lennox.

 

A low IQ mental basket case with tremendous athletic gifts.

 

Lewis-Golota could have been a war like Bowe-Golota if not for the lidocaine. Just my opinion. Not saying Golota would have won necessarily, but he defintiely would have given a MUCH better account of himself and not succumbed in one round like that.

 

Fair comment.
He did have spells away after his devastating defeats but came back for new runs....over a 10 year run..

 

I find him number 9 in98,number8 in 99 and number 8 in2004, presumably because of his draw with Byrd.
No long term relevance that I can see.

 

His only claim to fame is wrecking Riddick Bowe, and he did do that.

 

Thats interesting..i didnt know about the lidocaine...it may help explain his timid implosion vs,lewis...that fight was certainly a big fight...as were the 2 bowe wars...golota become a fresh new star in the hw division following the 1st bowe fight in summer 1996...appearing on Letterman...for sure he became a great white hope in america...both bowe dq"s were almost seen as wins at the time...following the 1997 lewis defeat..he pretty much spent 7 years on the fringes..but in that time he had grant who was an undefeated and a hot young contender beaten before his mad urges cost him...the tyson defeat was v bad....but he stayed a dark horse right up until summer 2005 with the untypically typically golota defeat to brewster for the wbo titoe where he was the favourite.he shouldve been coming into that fight ibf and wba champ ...his 2 previous fights in 2004 he"d fought 24 rounds against byrd and ruiz where most people felt he beat ruiz,and a heck of a lot had the byrd draw a golota win.....he wasnt a year in year out guy but right from his 1996 bowe fights up to his 3 title fights in 2004/5 ....9 years he was a factor in the hw division....the fact hes still a one off enigma we're talking of 15 years later points to that

 

That was a significant achievement...and the crazy thing is he could quite easily have been ibf/wba/wbo champ during 2004/5 but for debatable judging and his own volatile psychology to implode.

 

Kinda doubt it