What were Riddick Bowes weaknesses?

Review Cooper's fight with Evander Holyfield who was the Heavyweight Champion of the World. One punch from Cooper altered the entire fight. Cooper challenges were to get inside to do damage. Carl the Truth didn't let him inside he boxed intelligently. Bert Cooper on the inside displayed power.
Review his fight with Michael Moorer for confirmation...in addition you can review his fight with Ray Mercer and the damage done to Mercer's jaw. These are top level fights.

 

He didn't win any of these top level fights.
He simply doesn't have the credentials of a Tyson, Lewis, Tua, etc all of whom were contemporaries of Bowe who he failed to fight.

Dismissing the Williams fight on the basis of him fighting intelligently doesn't really help Bowes case either. Are you suggesting Cooper didn't land anything of substance the entire fight? Bowe ended the fight in the second round so he didn't get the chance to land much.

 

I think it's hard to argue that Bowe's chin was bad. The only times I can recall him hurt are briefly vs Biggs, Hide and in the first Holyfield fight, and badly in the third Holyfield and second Golota fights. For somebody who fought quite so aggressively, with such a poor defence, that's pretty good going. Especially given that Hide is a big puncher, Holyfield hurt just about everyone, and he was clearly past his best for Golota II.

I think we'd have seen him broken by Lewis at any point but if he'd have took on Rudduck, Morrison or others, we'd have seen him take their best, I reckon.

 

He wasn't afraid of Lewis. In some ways, Lewis's reputation gained considerable mileage from this fight not happening in 1993. If Bowe fought Lewis instead of a rematch with Holyfield I think he would have beaten him.

 

He was pretty slow afoot

 

To me, his weaknesses were focus and (after the Holyfield loss) a tendency to rely too much on his power rather than his boxing skills.

 

This is just plain dumb.

 

Tyson would have fought him in a second, and Morrison wanted the fight. There were bigger punchers than Ray Mercer out there.

Yeah, he ducked the guy who TKOd him as an amateur.

 

True, he looked a bit ponderous at times.

 

He had plenty of pop right before and directly after winning his first belt. He would have given most ATGs a hard time in 1992 imo. But he was also a lame champion: lazy, disgracefully unmotivated, apt to listen to a truly terrible manager who ruined what could have been the 2nd best heavy fight of the 90s...and the first was his first fight with Holy. Though I dispute Holy's win in the 2nd fight, Bowe was disgustingly sloppy in both shape and form for that fight. He deserved to lose for having such a losing approach to our great sport. Just my opinion, no offense to fans (I used to be a huge fan of Bowe until I looked deeper into his fight career). He could have beat Lewis in 92 but he let his scumbag, dumbass manager throw it away through reccomending a truly horrendous act for a champ: throwing a belt in the trash. It could have set both men for life, and been terrific for us fans.

 

I picked a random fight on YouTube, the Biggs fight. I forwarded to midway in the first round of the fight. Direct link with timestamp here:

This content is protected

I will judge what I see, but there's a twist: I will use the same yard stick I often perceive to be used against old time fighters.

- He stands straight up without bending the knees. One of the first thing a good modern boing coach will tell you is to keep your knees bent. He seems to loaf around the ring. His footwork is neither sharp nor lively. At times he is literally stationary. A guy like Ali or Tunney would do laps around him.
- He uses a lazy guard. Often with only one glove protecting his face, even during exchanges. He does employ a solid high guard at one point, but it's a rare sight. Towards the end of the round he defenselessly walks in Biggs' range and eats a hard jab to the face. His facial expression shows that he looks perplexed.
- He has solid reflexes with his head movement.
- He overextends his punches, leaving himself off balance. Notice the first overhand right he throws at the start of the timestamp, he swings for the fences, misses, and takes a moment to regain his composure. Someone like Louis would floor him for that kind of slip up. Even the commentator mentions that he throws a "wild right."
- His inside uppercut during the clinch seems to be effective.
- Biggs is hardly a moving target, and yet Bowe seems to be gun-shy in landing punches on a very hittable target.
- You can clearly see he has strength in the clinches, and his punches seem to have some decent pop on them.

 

The issue is punching power. I'm saying Cooper had it and displayed it against the top fighters in the division. Evander Holyfield wasn't easy to knockdown was he? Cooper had other issues, limitations but power wasn't one of them.

 

Ducked you say?

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-07-21-sp-15342-story.html

This content is protected

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/21/...with-words-in-regard-to-possible-matchup.html

This content is protected

Lennox Lewis is just as guilty as this fight now happening as Bowe. They both were playing hardball with each other and Lewis had every opportunity to accept the fight and kept finding a way to say no to multi-million dollar offers. Bowe losing to Holyfield in the rematch and Lewis getting knocked out by McCall didn't help matters.

As for their amateur history? Lennox Lewis lost to both Donovan Razor Ruddock and Tyrell Biggs during his amateur days but he was able to beat them as a professional. Just because Lewis beat Bowe as an amateur it doesn't mean that he would have beaten him as a pro. I personally think that Lewis was fortunate that this fight didn't come off in 1993; a decisive loss to Bowe could have changed his career trajectory.

This wasn't ducking, this was showboating promoters who for the first time had a Heavyweight Champion or a fighter capable of winning the Heavyweight Championship within their stable and they were just all just grandstanding.

 

It's true, management ruined Bowe-Lewis. But I still feel Bowe was extraordinarily dumb for letting Newman talk him into trashing that belt. It made him look scared when, judging from their confrontation after thr first Holy fight, neither Bowe nor Lewis had any fear. I don't think Lewis had the chin for Bowe at that point...however, I think anytime after 1993 Lewis would have stomped the **** out of him.

 

Discipline, the lack of it.
It's that simple .