Why did Bowe fight Ferguson and Dokes?

Bowe was just doing the typical thing that champions do after winning the title. Beating some nobodies and wash-ups and absorbing some big paydays before potentially losing the title, which Bowe did, obviously.

 

I think Dokes legitimately won his shot. He had just beat Ferguson and Jose Ribalta, both of whom were ranked contenders at the time I believe. Besides, I don't think King would do something like that.

 

Easy fights.
Bowe had just won the title from Holyfield in a tough 12 rounder. His manager wanted to keep him busy and earning but wanted an easy fight or two.

 

He fought Ferguson as Jesse had just beaten Ray Mercer who was lined up to fight Riddick. Sort of tied Riddick's hands and he gets unfairly criticised for taking a soft one whereas if he'd fought the loser of that fight, he'd have been credited with taking a tough one. Mercer is often cited as one of Lennox or Evander's top notch opponents as he gave them both tough fights. Bowe battered the man who beat him. Jesse is therefore thought of as being inept but he had earned his shot. It's not Bowe's fault that he made him look so bad, quite the opposite.

Dokes was a bit of a soft one but it came only three or four months after the Holyfield war. Fair play for fighting so quickly when nobody would have minded if he'd taken a bit longer to let his bruises heal. He got back in the ring, kept busy and earned some money. Nothing to see here. A lot of champions like Holmes, Louis and Ali did the same. And they don't draw such criticism. Dempsey, too, did the same minus the keeping busy part. His defences were rare and he hardly took on a murderers row when he could be arsed to defend his title.

In fact, you could say that the fights he took after losing the title were all pretty good opponents and would stack up favourably against som title runs of other more highly-regarded champions. Okay, Buster Mathis was a bit of a gimme but Larry Donald, Herbie Hide, Jorge Luis Gonzalez (at the time), Holyfield and then Golota was a pretty tough run.

 

Nobody defends these two fights.

They were soft touches, everyone knows it.

 

Nearly everyone takes soft touches. Foreman-Roman, Ali-Wepner, Holmes-Evangelista, Foreman-Schulz were all soft touches. Lots of others as well. Actually, these fights were worse than Bowe taking on Dokes and Ferguson, who were worth more than Roman, Wepner, and Evangelista.

 

And no one would defend those neither.

 

Champions have always taken that kind of trash as a first fight, and nobody has ever questioned that.

 

Like you said then, trash fights, that is what these are. Couldn't put it better myself.

 

Okay, if you were Bowe, who would you have fought, RIGHT AFTER Holyfield 1?

 

If I was a professional boxer I would fight the highest reward for the lowest possible risk, every single time.

My goal would be to make enough money to set my family up for life and to be able to survive my career and enjoy it afterwards.

But I'm not a boxer, I'm a fan of boxing. And as you rightly said, they're trash fights. I'm actually agreeing with you, they were trash fights.

 

Bowe showed an impressive set of skills against Ferguson. That left hook was a beauty. Merchant says he never saw a big man as well schooled as Bowe

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