Mythical Match Up #2: Riddick Bowe vs. Lennox Lewis (Fall, 1994)

[Ham Porter]

As a matter of fact, regardless of Bowe's condition, Holly beat Bowe by boxing him....Not a natural proclivity for Holly!

Yeah, and him winning that fight had a great deal to do with his mobility, which is something he didn't have by the mid 90's.

[billeau2]

Yeah, and him winning that fight had a great deal to do with his mobility, which is something he didn't have by the mid 90's.

No doubt. He also hated to outmanoveur, or box anyone he could confront and overwhelm with an exchange. Yet, side from Bowe, when Holyfield became unquestionably a heavyweight in size... i.e. there was a point where he got bigger, stronger, and people sort of "dropped" the talk of him having been a cruiserweight... there was not much of a call for him to outbox, outmanuveur an opponent. Looking back on some if his fights, he was never going to win a fight with Moore boxing him, with Tyson he specifically had to fight inside and actually bully Tyson on his heels... which brings one to the Lewis fights.

Lewis, during his career was often underestimated as a boxer. It is doubtful HolyField could have done well against Lewis trying to box him and Lewis was never hard to find in the ring!

My point is that when you, SugarJ and any other posters propose that the early version of Holyfield was better and more able to manuveur around the ring....Its probably true. However its also true that given Holyfield's psychological comfort zone as a fighter, given his need to mix it up and overwhelm opponents his lack of mobility might be academic. Because two things can be said, imo with certainty about the man:

a) Holyfield was never going to overwhelm Riddick Bowe unless he was either bigger & stronger, or, decided not to try....Hence we have the very coachable Holyfield boxing his way to victory in the fight he won against Bowe. We also have the next failed attempt, when Evander was a bit bigger and stronger which came up short. He tried to slug it out with Bowe.

b) Holyfield always was a guy who lived for mixing it up. So it was probably beneficial to get some more size and strength, specifically because of how Holyfield liked to fight. It might be that with more mobility and boxing strategy Holyfield could have been a better fighter...But as James Baldwin once said about writing the way he chose to write his novels: "you go which way your blood beats." I propose one could no more make a consistant boxer out of a guy with Holyfield's temperment, than one could turn Sweet Pea into a Ko artist.