Riddick Bowe gets a lot of grief for defending against Jesse Ferguson. On one hand you could argue that Ferguson earned his shot by beating Ray Mercer three months earlier. On the other hand, within the last year, Ferguson lost to Tony Tubbs and Michael Dokes. Should Mercer have gotten the shot anyway? After all, Ron Lyle still got his shot against Muhammad Ali despite losing to Jimmy Young three months earlier. Alfredo Evangelista still got his shot against Ali despite losing to Lorenzo Zanon, again, three months earlier. I know Lennox Lewis is an obvious answer, but he was scheduled to fight Tony Tucker that same month. Yes, it would have been the ideal match, and it should have happened, but let's take that possibility off the table for this discussion. So who should Bowe have fought? Ferguson, like he did? Mercer, despite the loss? Or someone else? Here's Ring's rankings from that month for possibilities. The Ring - September 1993 (as of May 12, 1993) 1. Riddick Bowe (WBA/IBF) 2. Lennox Lewis (WBC) 3. Evander Holyfield 4. Michael Moorer 5. George Foreman 6. Tommy Morrison 7. Alex Garcia 8. Razor Ruddock 9. Tony Tubbs 10. Oliver McCall Alex Garcia would exit the ratings the following month, with Frank Bruno coming in.
I’m OK with the Jesse Ferguson defense. Bowie beat Holyfield for the title and defended against a still-frisk yMichael Dokes (TKO 1) and was planning to fight Mercer next had Ray not dogged it against Ferguson. And Riddick rematches Holy in his next defense after Ferguson. It was a stay-busy fight and I have no problem with that. Other than the Lewis fight never getting made (both sides probably had something to do with that as they angled for bargaining position), I don’t see any avoidance of top competition on Bowe’s part.
