Who was the best heavyweight boxer ever?

[Universe]

Tyson Fury is a great entartainer, he's funny af

[Vlatko Vukovic]

I just like that video so much. Because of very Mike skills in his prime, but also because of DMX badass music in the back.

[Lemminkäinen]

I don't follow boxing that much but I was surprised to see a dadbod Tyson Fury could beat ripped athletic guys like Wilder and Klitschko. If I remember correctly Mike Tyson in an interview also said something like: "Tyson Fury doesn't look like he can fight well, but he can"

Tyson Fury is very skilled and is able to time his hits perfectly. When he moves ahead he has all his fatty body behind punches. In his Wilder match he first softened Wilder by his body punches, which left Wilder's head open.

[Vlatko Vukovic]

Agree about the jab and grab, perfected by Wladimir Klitschko lol. Bowe never grabbed, he FOUGHT inside, and was one of the best ever in close. I am thinking about Wlad and Bowe head to head, on their best nights, and that's a hard fight for me to call. If the fight was fought completely at distance, Wlad's very straight right had and sneaky jump in hook would be a big problem. If Bowe could get close and maul Wlad, then he obliterates him. So for me, it depends on who could impose their tactics on the other. Bowe had the better chin.

The Riddick Bowe that fought Holyfield, in the first fight, may very well be the best heavyweight ever. He was awesome on that night.

I would have liked to see him employ a straighter right hand shot (he tended to loop them). If he had that punch more developed, and been more defensively responsible (he could be careless on defense, but that seemed to be a product, to some extent, of his willingness to go after guys aggressively), I think his career could have been much longer.

The knock on Bowe is his notorious lack of discipline (ballooning up in weight between fights), and ultimately a short career which keeps him out of the number 1 spot for me, but surely in the top 10.

I watched Bowe-Golota dual-match, and i was always asking myself, why Golota throw those low blows, while he was winning in both matches? Why he wanted so much to hurt Bowe, even losing the match. Did he has something very personal about him at the time?

[Mr.G]

I watched Bowe-Golota dual-match, and i was always asking myself, why Golota throw those low blows, while he was winning in both matches? Why he wanted so much to hurt Bowe, even losing the match. Did he has something very personal about him at the time?

Golota, in the early part of his career, used to short-circuit mentally when the going got tough. I can remember in one of his early fights he bit a guy on the shoulder who he had been beating easily. He quit against Tyson, although later it was reveled he had sustained serious facial fractures.

Bowe was a bad man, and Golota was kicking his ass yet Bowe was still putting a ton of pressure on him, and hitting him hard too. Golota just melted down and hit him in the balls as sort of a survival/instinctive reaction, imo. I think it was a form of quitting, by getting himself disqualified. Interestingly, later in his career Golota was in other tough fights (the John Ruiz fight comes to mind) where he kept his composure and fought with a lot of heart.

I find it fascinating that Golota was able to out-box Bowe - and that's what make me think that the Klitschko's would have been very tough fights for him (Bowe). I think his best chance to win would have been to go after them aggressively.

Of course another thing to keep in mind is that Bowe was actually past his best when he fought Golota. It seems that Bowe had lost his hunger (not for food ), but for fighting. He was known for losing massive amounts of weight in his training camps, and a dehydrated, weakened state is not what you want when you are taking punches to the head in sparring. He also got hit a lot in fights, Holyfield dropped him and Herbie Hide hurt him seriously too. So, he may have had some neurological damage going into the brutal Golota fights, and he was notably slurring his speech after the second fight.

In spite of Bowe getting outboxed and beat up in both Golota fights, imo Bowe proved himself superior to Golota because of the strength of his will, he pressured Golota into effectively quitting in both fights.