Its hard to say. Bowe probably did have one too many pork chops like Foreman said, but despite being behind for most of the fight he was starting to catch up just before the fan man appeared. I think had there been no fan man, Bowe would've gotten the upper hand just enough to either win the fight or score a draw. If we look at the 1st and 3rd fights we know Bowe won both, but they were close like the 2nd fight was starting to be.
No. Holyfield was far more aggressive in this one, and Bowe thought he just had to show up, i wouldn't read to much into the fan man because it could have affected them both to be fair.
Bowe should've won "with" fan man. Bowe threw 100 more punches than Holyfield in that fight and LANDED 100 more punches than Holyfield. I defy you to find any heavyweight title fight in boxing history where the defending champion threw AND landed 100 more punches than his challenger, the champ didn't get knocked down, and the challenger took the title. People gave Evander rounds because he was doing much better than he did in their first fight ... a fight where Bowe just beat him up. Holyfield barely made it 12 and retired in his dressing room afterward. But Bowe should never have lost his title that night. Bowe was busier and not only matched Evander punch for punch, he LANDED 100 MORE punches. Evander didn't match Bowe punch for punch. He should've been 0-3 against Bowe. The decision was widely applauded, because Evander was a nice guy and people were happy for him, and Bowe and Rock Newman were the jerks of the sport at that time. But you don't take a title off a champ after a fight like that, especially one where he landed 100 more punches than his challenger.
Like @Dubblechin, I've always scored this to Bowe anyway, albeit usually closely. Not a highway job, but definitely a dubious decision for me which curiously tends to escape scrutiny.
The thing about landing 100 more punches might be misleading. Bear with me and see if this makes sense. Over eight rounds there might be four rounds where you land 100 punches while your opponent lands 50, you probably win four rounds. But in that eight rounds, there are four in which you take a breather and throw, say, 25 punches while your opponent stays true to form and throws 50 again. He probably wins those four rounds. So after eight rounds, despite having thrown 100 more punches, you find yourself even. Then, in the other four rounds, punch stats are even but the fighter who has thrown fewer punches is throwing slightly better shots so the judges award these very close rounds to him, for the most part. And so he gets awarded the fight, quite correctly. Winning fights is about winning more rounds, not throwing more punches. And throwing way more punches doesn't often result in a 10-8 round. Throw 50 to your opponent's 25 gets a 10-9 round every bit as often as throwing 100 to your opponent's 50. I think that's what happened here. Bowe won rounds more clearly but Evander won more rounds albeit by a lesser margin. As for the question, both fighters were in the same ring, both had the same delay. Holyfield prevailed in the set of circumstances both fighters found themselves in. Whatever. It was a great fight. It often gets overlooked compared to fight one. True, it lacked that blistering tenth round but it was a much closer fight and, for mine, ever so slightly better.
I'm aware of how fights are scored. And I know one fighter having some big rounds here or there can throw off stats. But, again, I defy you to find any heavyweight title fight in history where the defending heavyweight champion threw and landed (that's LANDED) 100 more punches in the fight than his challenger, neither fighter went down, and the champion lost the title via decision. Bowe landed 100 more punches in their first meeting, too, in the fight where he was awarded nine rounds by two of the judges. Bowe landed 357 punches in the first fight. And Bowe landed 353 punches in fight two. Evander landed 242 punches in the first fight. Evander landed 253 punches in the fight two. Other than the fan man, the primary difference in the two fights was Evander didn't go down in the rematch, like he did in round 11 in the first fight. There were no two rounds in there where Bowe outlanded Evander by 50 punches to zero to account for the wide disparity. Bowe consistently outlanded Evander Round after Round for most of the fight. I think there was one round (the sixth) when Evander actually outlanded Bowe by 15 punches. That may have been Holyfield's greatest punch-disparity round. Other than that, it was essentially round after round of Bowe landing more punches. Landing more punches tends to get the champion the round. I've just always thought it was shocking Holyfield got the decision. I watched it live, and I couldn't believe it. It was a memorable evening. I had a houseful of people over. I was happy for him, but to take it away from Bowe seemed harsh, considering he was the busier guy all night and he landed the most punches (by a lot).
Some boxers don't land 100 punches in a whole 12-rounder. Yet Bowe landed 100 MORE PUNCHES than Holyfield did in the fight Bowe lost his title on points. It seems almost impossible to be a defending champion and consistently land nine or 10 more punches a round than your challenger in practically every round - in a fight with no knockdowns - and LOSE a decision. Yet, it happened to Bowe. By comparison, Usyk landed 46 more punches than Joshua when he successfully defended against him. What if Usyk landed 100 more punches, and they gave it to Joshua anyway because Joshua fought better than he did in the first fight? They're both basically landing the same amount of punches they did last time, but one guy looks like he's fighting better than he did before, so let's give it to him. To me, that's basically what Bowe-Holyfield 2 was like. Except Bowe landed more punches (353) in the fight he lost to Evander than Usyk and Joshua managed to land COMBINED (294) in their rematch. Can you imagine? Statistically, it's almost laughable. The most punches ever thrown in a heavyweight match came in the Kownacki-Arreola fight (more than 2,000 punches thrown). Kownacki won. He landed 365 punches. He won a one-sided decision. Bowe landed 353 in his rematch with Evander, and he LOST his title on points.