He might be long retired, but Riddick Bowe claims he is still ready to fight one heavyweight at the drop of a hat.
Bowe was one of the greats of his era with two big wins over Evander Holyfield, though he didn’t fight Mike Tyson and a battle with Lennox Lewis never came to pass, with Bowe infamously vacating his WBC title and thrown it in the bin once Lewis was named as the mandatory challenger.
Speaking to Dr. Beau Hightower, Bowe was asked about the situation and said any claims that he ducked Lewis were false.
“I really think that Lennox. Let’s do the maths. I beat [Evander] Holyfield two times. How many times Lennox beat him? They went 1 and 1 and a draw. That goes to show you that I would have beat him no problem, I would have knocked the man down. He was next.”
It was then put to him that he was never really stopped bar a ‘fake’ stoppage at the Olympics in 1988 against Lennox, who himself was knocked out twice in dramatic fashion during his professional career.
“Let’s go back to Lennox Lewis. There were a couple of guys who knocked him out. I hit harder than [Hasim] Rahman, so he did right not to face me.”
Finally, Bowe got riled up just talking about his old enemy and declared he was still ready to fight him now.
“Lennox, I just don’t like him. He still damn irks me. Man, I’m ready to fight.”
Unsurprisingly, Lewis was not among the five best heavyweights that Bowe named recently.