How good was the Golota that fought Bowe?

[p4pking]

He certainly had a very short prime, but in those 2 fights he dominated one of the best HWs of the era. If he continued that form, how good could he have been?

There is an old boxing maxim which states that it's 95% mental and 5% physical. Andrew had the physical part pretty much mastered and was and sorta still is one of the most talented fighters pugilistically to ever come out of Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, upstairs he was a baron wasteland.

I'm not even sure Cus could have helped that basket case.

Assuming he had something upstairs other then spinal fluid, I think he could have really been a factor.

Good post. Hypotheticals just don't work with guys who lack the mindset in that way, it's not much different than saying what if Glen Johnson was Audley Harrison or something. I do think Golota held it together on a couple of occasions, but I'm thinking of the Byrd and Ruiz fights where he wasn't in against guys who could hurt him. I thought he won both of those fairly clearly if I remember, but he was always going to fall apart or implode at other times. Lennox Lewis flat out iced him as well, I don't think that his shortcomings were even on display so much in that fight, he just got caught cold.