Bowe had all the size, and tools needed to EASILY beat Tua, but his defense sucked, and he loved to brawl, so does that give a prime Tua a chance to clock him? I think so. Plus Riddick was a sucker for left hooks anyway. Tua by KO in an upset. Anyone agree?
First off all this has nothing to do with Golota so don't say im picking Bowe to make Golota look better :: besides Golota beat tua within an inch of his life in sparring in 96 :warning: Anyway..Sure bowe liked to slug but he's chin was pretty good and Tua's punch is a bit overrated anyways. Tua did land a couple good shot on lennox and didn't even shake him plus he had 22 rounds with rahman and it was rahman dropping tua in those 22 rounds and not the other way around...getting back to bowe...im sure bowe would frustrate the shit out of tua with his jab and bowe's punch would discourage tua just like lennox's did. Tua has a good chin but i think his heart is lacking..he didnt go balls to the wall against lennox cuz he didnt like the pain that lennox's shots brought so he just basically pulled a roy jones and was happy going the distance...Bowe discourages Tua with the jab and power shots...Tua lands some good shots posiblly even hurts or drops bowe but bowe's heart and skill prevail and bowe wins a 116-112 type decision.
The version of Bowe that Golota beat up twice was a SHELL of 92 version, so i dont think your doing it to make Golota look better. You make some very good points, and I could see Bowe winning, I just eventually see Riddick getting caught and getting hurt, and Tua not letting him off the hook. Tua in his prime was one od the best finishers in the divisions history, only Tyson, Louis, and Foreman were better finishers than Tua I would say. And just for the record, fuck sparring! If Tua & Golota had ever fought for REAL, at any points in thier careers, Golota gets KO'd.
SHELL ?? Golota made him look like a shell the man was 29 years old at the time!! Golota gets KO'ed ? Golota was never KO'ed in his LIFE. He was stopped not KNOCKED OUT. He was never counted OUT ! NEVER! He fought some huge punchers like Lewis,Tyson,Bowe,Brewster,Witherspoon never counted out ONCE..yet this great puncher Tua couldn't even drop glass chinned Rahman in the 22 rounds they fought...Plus Rahman outboxed the shit out of Tua...so did Oleg till he got cought late...hell even Izon was beating Tua till he got cought...Golota prior to the Bowe fights was as confident as he got...those fights with bowe destroyed the man mentally....therefore a prime golota the one going into the first bowe fight was as confident as he gets plus he would be going into this fight knowing he made tua his bitch in sparring everyday so his confidence wouldnot be an issue...therefore tua gets beaten up PERIOD. Don't tell me sparring doesn't mean shit..don't tell me sparring has nothing to do with an outcome with an actual fight....sparring is as good a preview of actually happends during a fight as anything....Bowe hits harder than Tua belive it or not...and if Golota could take bowe's punch he takes Tua's...now if rahman oleg izon and everybody else with little skill outboxes tua...prime golota makes tua look like butterbean....in closing Bowe UD tua..Golota same :bears: :bears: :bears:
Age means nothing in boxing! The 3 wars with Holy finished Bowe. Hell he even showed signs that he was diminshed in the third Holy fight when he was dropped and nearly KO'd. Golota fought a washed up, overweight Bowe, deal with it! As for Tua vs Golota, I dont care what happened between them in sparring. All I can by is what I saw from both of them in REAL fights. What I saw from Golota is that he folded under pressure. Either by getting STOPPED(happy now), quitting, or getting DQ'd. And if a prime Tua did anything well, it was apply pressure. And Bowe did NOT hit as hard as Tua, not with one punch anyway. Only 90's heavyweights who hit harder than Tua are Tyson, Lewis, and Ruddock. Andrew would be outboxing Tua easily, then he caught eventually with something big, and would mentally fall apart. Hell he damn fell apart against Pou'ha, who was the homeless man's Tua. Pou'ha woulda won that fight if didnt come in as such a flabby fatass!
Pou'ha wouldn't have won shit..he got lucky with a shot and that shot didnt even drop Golota it hurt him that's all...now the third Holy fight was a bad night for Bowe..a bad night on which he still KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT one of the greatest heavyweights ever...bowe was fat for the first golota fight...252 pounds for a 6'5 guy is not fat anyway...it's pretty close to the right weight anyway...and yes Bowe hit harder than Tua...I don't see Tua ko'ing prime holyfield ..and yes I see Bowe Ko'ing rahman or Oleg or izon people Tua struggled with..and pls there are plenty more 90's heavys who hit harder than tua...ike did...wlad did..hell corrie sanders probablly did too...tua's punch rep is based on a bitz of a green ruiz...ruiz made tua ...if ruiz dissapeared that night after getting killed vs tua tua would have been thought of much less....ruiz made tua ..ruiz went on to much bigger and better things than tua but ppl remembered what tua did that's why they held him in such a high regard for years even though he didn't deserve it....golota was much much much better than tua and 96 golota beats tua easily PERIOD
I could see Tua KOing THAT version of Holy. Evander was having fuckin heart problems that night, and clearly was physically impaired. And your right Bowe woulda KO'd Oleg, and Rachan, and Izon, because he was a better FIGHTER overall than Tua and woulda landed on those guys alot more frequently. But in terms of one punch power, Tua hit harder.
Tua doesn't KO Bowe and therefore loses a decision look at the crazy wars Bowe was in without being stopped...no way Tua does anything different ________ WHOLE FOODS GIFT CARDS
Yeah but holyfield punched nowhere as hard as Tua and neither did Golota....yet the foul pole probably would have stopped Bowe in both fights if he didn't foul himself out.
Bowe had too much skill for Tua. Even though Bowe would love to trade in spots, he had a good enough chin not to be ko'ed off a single blow. Bowe by decision.
bowe would'e fucked tua up to the body and bust his face up on the inside. bowe wins a wide decision.
Tua looked like a world beater in '96 because he was knocking out guys who got got by plenty other fighters. The exception was Ruiz, who subsequently resorted to clutching in order to survive later in his career. Bowe beats his ass with ease, save for a few shaky moments (wouldn't be a real Riddick Bowe fight without a little drama). Bowe by decision.
Tua's toughness is over-rated. He has the chin, but Lewis hurt him with a bodyshot early in their fight & it completed folded Tua's resolve. He was out-jabbed by Rahman, a terrible, terrible fighter on the world-class level --- & Rahman didn't have as solid a chin as Bowe, with his offense being drastically inferior. I don't know that I'd pick Tua to beat the '96 Bowe, being frank --- Tua didn't have the angles, range or jab of Golota, who used all three to batter a faded Bowe about the ring, although to no avail. Tua hits harder than Golota, but gives up a fair bit elsewhere. Tua himself is just so heinously over-rated it's sickening. The '92 Bowe is just leagues & leagues & leagues above him.
I could see Tua landing something big to score the upset after catching a beating for a few rounds, but the more likely outcome is that Tua continues catching that beating en route to a wide UD for Bowe.
The thing about Tua is that everyone acts as if there was a difference between '96 version and '97 version - he was the same fighter, just ran into guys who dared to fight back. In fact, I think the Izonreiti fight ended his '96 campaign, a fight that helped Izonreiti score paydays but should've been a warning for how limited Tua was/is as a fighter.
Tua's problem was never with guys who fought back, it was with guys who knew when to get out of the way instead of fighting back (or who could get out of the way and fight back at the same time).
I guess. I just don't remember Izonreiti or Maskaev playing very much defense in their fights, not to the point where it could be defined as a stylistic issue for Tua. I just remember Tua looking extremely ordinary in both fights.
