Definitely Curry. Bowe's career is built around Evander Holyfield and Evander Holyfield alone. Remove Holy, and Bowe has no argument for the Hall. Curry dominated the welterweight division for close to three years, with some pretty impressive scalps on his resume along the way. Now, what I will say this is.... Bowe had A LOT more heart than Curry. A LOT more! But Curry was more talented, more skilled, and accomplished more. Curry's legacy is less tied to any one fighter, the way Bowe's is. We're talking about a man whom in 85 was argued as the possible P4P #1 over Hagler. Bowe was never close to any discussions like that.
The flipside to this argument is that Curry never went the extra mile and proved he was good enough to beat a fighter the level of Holy. While I won't argue that there are unanswered questions about Bowe, 2 decisive wins (plus one close lose) vs. an ATG HoFer can't be easily dismissed.
Curry's overall body of work still makes him greater. "Better" can be argued. Like I said, Curry was more talented and skilled, but Bowe was considerably tougher and had more heart, and wasn't without talent/skill. Bowe would never cower and quit on his stool the way Curry did against Honeyghan. But the thread only asked who was greater. Better is a different story, and can be argued either way.
This would depend whether or not you rate the two wins over prime Holyfield (although the 2nd win Holy had a heart attack and Foreman said he was gonna end up in a PINE BOX) over the two wins over Marlon Starling, the brutal KO over McCrory, and being ahead against a prime Mike McCallum
Even a guy like Nino Larocca was better than anyone Bowe beat NOT named Evander Holyfield. In a P4P sense, Larocca was a lot better than a Larry Donald or Herbie Hide. Then, POST prime, Curry destroyed Gianfranco Rosi, who isn't taken very seriously nowadays, but who was a quality fighter. Bowe's body of work outside of Holy is just too slim to give it to him on greatness. A strong argument can be made that 92 Bowe was the better of the two.
Honestly, I think the complete opposite of Xplosive. I think Bowe is clearly greater, while Curry is definitely a better fighter. Curry proved he had toughness and heart in his war with Norris. I don't think you can just say "well outside of Holyfield, he doesn't have much". What if I say "outside of Starling"? They're résumés become much more comparable, even if Curry's is still better but is it better by a margin wide enough to make up for the ground between Starling and Holyfield? Not even close, IMO. Bowe's wins over Tubbs and Biggs are getting overlooked here, I feel. Sure, they weren't the younger guys they were around the Tyson fights, but look at the form they had in their with Bowe. Very good fighters even at that point, they were definitely up for it and more talented than a LaRocca or McCrory. I suppose the blackmark to them is that he failed to dominate, unlike Curry. Obviously neither really had longevity (Curry due to weight drains and too long in the ams; Bowe's due to his style and lack of discipline) but Bowe was much more consistent than Don, even in their primes. Curry was a much better talent though, and much more skilled. Aside from seemingly having a worse chin, and not as much heart, I don't see what a Curry who makes weight clearly, does worse than Bowe.
Outside of what they accomplished or didn't in the ring Bowe's ducking of Lewis is a massive black mark on his career.
Huge. Honestly, and this is no exaggeration, the first thing I think about when I hear the name 'Riddick Bowe' is him throwing a belt in a bin to avoid being KO-ed again by Lewis. People talk of Bowe's 'heart', but he ran shamelessly like a coward from Lennox Lewis. MTF
Exactly. There have been countless big fights that didn't happen practically since boxing since started. Usually there is a good deal of blame to be placed all around but this one was all on Bowe.
