BoxRec

Boxings Riddick Bowe. His professional career. -----


How do you think Riddick should rank all time?


Somewhere in the top 20?


Top 15?



Or, better?



Why?

Riddick Bowe doesn't have a legacy.

He had one of the shortest primes in boxing history & a combination of stupidity & ill discipline has ruined his status for me.

Bowe was tremendously talented & could have been the best HW of the 90s; I believe he was that good.

Unfortunately for Bowe, ducking his biggest nemesis whilst continually insulting him & spending too much time eating rather than training has cost him a lot of ranking places IMHO.

His 2 wins over Holyfield are probably enough to put him in the top 20 HWs, but on ability, he could have been a top 10 HW easily.

Real shame indeed.

To be honest, I thought it was perhaps Eddie Futch's greatest achievement just getting this guy to the title. You end up resting almost your entire case on the Holyfield trilogy, one in which he had a decided weight advantage. Struggling with Golota so mightily, and his short career span, precludes me from including him in my Top 20 ATG Heavies.

one of the weirdest careers in hw history. too
little too short for making him part of any ATG
list. he looked sooo good for sooo short. as
someone pointed out, this kind of mentality is
usually not making it to the top.

to me he had all the tools, but had no idea of
how to manage his life. this thing with lennox
didn't help to much either.

I'd say he's a top 20 Heavy. Too far outside the top 100 for me to venture a guess.

Syntax Error wrote:Riddick Bowe doesn't have a legacy.

He had one of the shortest primes in boxing history & a combination of stupidity & ill discipline has ruined his status for me.

Bowe was tremendously talented & could have been the best HW of the 90s; I believe he was that good.

Unfortunately for Bowe, ducking his biggest nemesis whilst continually insulting him & spending too much time eating rather than training has cost him a lot of ranking places IMHO.

His 2 wins over Holyfield are probably enough to put him in the top 20 HWs, but on ability, he could have been a top 10 HW easily.

Real shame indeed.

You could not say it better. There is a saying that says "A mind is a terrible thing to waste"...Bowe was the mind wasted. He was surely one of boxing's biggest deceptions.

Syntax Error wrote:Riddick Bowe doesn't have a legacy.

man wrote:one of the weirdest careers in hw history. too
little too short for making him part of any ATG
list. he looked sooo good for sooo short. as
someone pointed out, this kind of mentality is
usually not making it to the top.

to me he had all the tools, but had no idea of
how to manage his life. this thing with lennox
didn't help to much either.

Not only did he have no idea how to manage his life, but he left the management of his career up to a guy who I think secretly didn't have much faith in him. I'm not for sure if Bowe had a mental block or not about Lewis "having his number" but I think the passage of time showed that Rock Newman definitely thought he did and did a tap dance around making the most profitable fight in history that never got made.

Probably somewhere between #20-#25 for me.

One of the most talented in my opinion. And perhaps way up there in the skill dept as well.


I'm not sure just because someone does not live up to their own potential, though they still manage to do great things, that it disqualifies them from the legacy of their genuine accomplishments.

He did what he did. Both good and bad. Not many on earth could accomplish what he did on the plus side.

Though many of us have sunk to such depths on the minus. Accordingly those things were not the remarkable aspects of who he was.

Well said Buzz. He arguably won 3 fights against an ATG and was the undisputed Heavyweight champion of the world during a great era. If that is no legacy than you've lost your mind. However you rate him, he's above both Klitschko's.

Cmon Ducer,

Has anyone endured a more brutal jewels assault?

Legend if for that only.

Limited Talent? That cinches it.....you are clueless.

BoxBuzz wrote:Cmon Ducer,

Has anyone endured a more brutal jewels assault?

Legend if for that only.

Limited Talent? That cinches it.....you are clueless.

Ok...the Pia thing.....he was 1/2 right.

He was a little mismanaged in that he was steered away from
Lewis and never secured Tyson. He missed out on significant wins he potentially could have notched up post-Holyfield. He he had been a bit braver and ambitious or if Holyfield had fallen as predicted to Tyson, then he I think would have garnered more highlight fights in the latter part of his career.

Oh Duce, it's more like 0% of the viewers that had Tubbs winning. Posters decades later? maybe 3% had Tubbs.

You guess? I was on my sofa watching Riddick win 7 out of 10. With the many 80's Heavies that are underrated, Tony wasn't one of them. Tubbs sucked.

Bowe was a very talented guy, no idea what Duce is on about, but that's par for the course.

As others pointed out, short prime, wasted a good part of what may have been a really great career, but it's hard to overlook what he did do.

I'd have him somewhere around #20-25, at Heavy, of course, not pfp, that would be getting a bit carried away, wouldn't even know where to put him. Throwing a dart at the book, I'll say #241 for the sake of wildly uneducated guesses.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:

Syntax Error wrote:Riddick Bowe doesn't have a legacy.

I hope you realise that particular line was said in a facetious way & not meant to be taken literally.

Nope, I didn't realize that at all. Well played, you even painstakingly spelled out the joke to keep the knee slapper going.

Il Duce wrote:Riddick Bowe

Lost to Tony Tubbs in my view, and about 80% of the TV Viewers who called in.

Around those Table discussions on Friday Night, who talks about Riddick Bowe being a very good fighter.

No one.

Get me that Pia Zadora Album..........

'Riddick Bowe Struggles Past Tony Tubbs, Decision Booed'

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 4ZNJcb64VQ

This is the first time I've ever heard this.

I haven't seen the fight in a long time, but when I watched it, I never came away thinking Tubbs was robbed.

I'm going to need to rewatch this bout.

Syntax Error wrote:

Il Duce wrote:Riddick Bowe

Lost to Tony Tubbs in my view, and about 80% of the TV Viewers who called in.

Around those Table discussions on Friday Night, who talks about Riddick Bowe being a very good fighter.

No one.

Get me that Pia Zadora Album..........

'Riddick Bowe Struggles Past Tony Tubbs, Decision Booed'

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 4ZNJcb64VQ

This is the first time I've ever heard this.

I haven't seen the fight in a long time, but when I watched it, I never came away thinking Tubbs was robbed.

I'm going to need to rewatch this bout.

Dempsey and Alp have been saying it for years. Your initial recollection is spot on. Nice effort from Tubbs, crystal clear win for Bowe.

He was a fantastic heavyweight…

But I can’t help but think that he profited from coming along when there was another great heavy (Holyfield) who he had a huge size advantage over.

He had a great jab…that he often just didn’t use…and he had great courage…

But he gave away one of the belts. Cheated the fans out of the Lewis fight, even though he had already agreed to the fight. And he was only 28 when Golota beat him up.

He seems like a good guy now…

Ezzard wrote:He was a fantastic heavyweight…

But I can’t help but think that he profited from coming along when there was another great heavy (Holyfield) who he had a huge size advantage over.

He had a great jab…that he often just didn’t use…and he had great courage…

But he gave away one of the belts. Cheated the fans out of the Lewis fight, even though he had already agreed to the fight. And he was only 28 when Golota beat him up.

He seems like a good guy now…

Agree with this, but he is such an enigma for me.

I saw him interviewed on Ringside last year & he was in complete denial about the ducking of the Lewis fight.

He actually tried to accuse Lewis of ducking HIM.

Like you say, he had great courage, but I will forever wonder why he didn't want to fight Lewis, when any other fighter would have been chomping at the bit to get in there & get some sort of revenge for the Olympic defeat.

I know Newman was controlling him, but that fight could easily have happened had Bowe insisted on it.

I never understood the Lewis duck either, though I think he made 10 million fighting Dokes & Ferguson. So HBO could be partially to blame.