Wladimir Klitschko vs Riddick Bowe - in their primes - Who wins?

thanks for being u.

 

for 6 minutes of his retirement, thats what he thinks

 

This overrating by some Riddick Bowe fans that act like he was some amazing heavyweight really has to stop.

He got two beat downs from Golota, and he could only win a robbery against Billy Zumbrun in a SD (embarrassing)
Had a KO win over Bruce Seldin, but so did Tye Fields and Fres Oquendo! Beat Herbie Hide, but so did Mindaugas Kulikauskas (14-9-2), beat Larry Donald, a poor man's Eddie Chambers, beat Michael Dokes, who also lost to Louis Monaco (16-39-5) and beat Tony Tubbs in a close fight, a guy who people only rate cos Tyson beat him, that ended up losing 10 fights.

Add to that threw a belt in the bin to avoid Lennox Lewis. He was decent for a couple years then his career fell off a cliff!!! Klitschko on the other was the opposite, his discipiline, and longetivity at the top, and overall ability make this not even a question for me.

 

I actually never considered that before. I wouldn't say Tua was one of Lennox's best wins though, but outside of Holyfield and Vitali it's hard to say who was.

Anyways, Byrd was a boss. Most underrated HW since Jimmy Young.

 

My main issue with Bowe isn't his longevity, but the fact that his prime wasn't actually as great as we're made to believe. There's a small but vocal and entrenched cadre of fans who insist that the Bowe who beat Holyfield in the first fight would have beaten any HW in history, and I find that a ludicrous proposition; certainly one that can't really be substantiated.

Holyfield was an ATG fighter, but one who provided a certain set of problems that Bowe was perfectly suited to capitalise on. That doesn't mean that beating him in a back and forth war automatically means you beat every other HW out there past or present. Wlad is about as far from Holyfield, stylistically and physically, as you can get, and when Bowe fought fighters closer to him in height he looked like garbage.

It's those performances you have to go on to begin to construct a scenario for how this fight unfolds, but Bowe's 'prime' was so short and choppy that it's hard to tell where stylistic problems ended and shotness and other out-of-the-ring factors began. If you base his chances on the actual in-ring footage we have of him (perfectly natural thing to do) then he gets utterly outclassed.

 

Nah bowe got beat up because he was fat as hell.
His optimum fighting weight was 235-240lb but he showed up at 252 pounds and looked incredibly sluggish and got executed by Golota as a result. In the rematch he slimmed down but at that point the damage had been done. He was also slurring his words before then.

Gonzalez was 6'7, almost 240 pounds and Bowe completely manhandled him on the ropes and brutally knocked him out. Wladimir on the other hand is the definition of a man bullying smaller men.

Prime for Prime this fight is 50/50 because Klitschko is more proven and posseses murderous punching power, but Bowe would be an absolute nightmare for Klitschko due to his infighting skills and his similar size. That alone partially takes away Klitschko main weapon which is to clinch. Bowe wasn't some slow plodder with no ring iq he knew how to cut off the ring and take the fight to opponents

 

Bowe is overrated. He got hit way too much at all points in his career. And he always had a low ring IQ. Those two attributes have nothing to do with his poor diet and weight issues which seem to always be given as the reason his prime was cut short.
Look at how many left hooks a shot Dokes bounces off him in their one round fight.
Bowe often got frustrated and resorted to being dirty (Tillery, Coetzee, Mathis Jr) he’s not beaten a disciplined fighter like Wlad that was a monster puncher