Heavyweight Dreamer

Riddick Bowe first came to the attention of the general sporting public during the 1988 Olympics where he reached the super heavyweight final. Bowe’s psuedo Ali behaviour made him a favourite with the sporting press. The fact that the quiet Canadian Lennox Lewis stopped him in the final was subtly ignored by the US Media.

Bowe turned pro to the usual fanfare accorded for US Olympic Champs. He rattled through 18 easy wins before he faced his first name opponent former WBC Champ Pinklon Thomas in September 1990. Thomas was stopped in nine rounds and Bowe’s stock rose considerably.

The next two years saw Bowe emerge as the number one contender for Evander Holyfield’s World title. After beating Thomas, Bowe ran up 12 wins against assorted opposition before signing to meet Holyfield in November 1992. At 6’5” and 235lbs Bowe towered over Holyfield and appeared to have the equipment to blow the smaller man away. In reality it was a close fight fought inside at a high tempo. Bowe won because he was a stronger and more effective in-fighter.

As champion Bowe and his manager Rock Newman made many outlandish statements and generally got carried away with the thrill of winning the richest prize in sport. Newman was very protective of his client and it showed in the title defences Bowe made during his year as champ; washed up ex Alphabet Champ Mike Dokes and has been Jesse Ferguson were nowhere near championship quality. Lennox Lewis after a slow start to his pro career emerged as a top contender in 1993, rather than fight Lewis Bowe theatrically relinquished his WBC belt by throwing it into a trashcan at a press conference. Lewis gratefully accepted this scrap winning the vacant WBC shortly afterwards.

Chasing the money Bowe agreed to fight Holyfield a year after they last met. There was no suggestion that Evander had improved enough to beat Bowe so Riddick and Rock Newman were extremely confident of victory. Unfortunately Holyfield had not read the same script, working furiously in training Evander had developed a strategy of slick movement and fighting in bursts that negated Bowe's advantages in height, weight and in-fighting. Despite an unscheduled interruption by a skydiver Holyfield won a close points decision.

Bowe took defeat badly. He returned to the ring in August 1994 a diminished fighter. His comeback bout ended in disaster as he hit Buster Mathis jnr when he was on the floor. Bowe should have been disqualified; instead the bout was called a No Contest. Undeterred Bowe carried on getting into scrapes in the build up to his next three fights against Larry Donald, Herbie Hide and Jorge Luis Gonzalez. He beat all three and captured Hide’s worthless WBO Title in the process. He then fought Holyfield a third time in November 1995. At this point both men were out of the title picture. George Foreman was the World Champ and Mike Tyson was out of prison and chasing Alphabet Titles. Bowe produced the result of his career by knocking Holyfield out in eight rounds, the first time Holyfield was stopped.

Sadly this impressive result was not the herald of a new dawn for Bowe. Tyson avoided him and he continued to duck Lennox Lewis. Bowe’s next fight was against an up and coming Polish fighter called Andrew Golota in July 1996 at Madison Square Garden. In a brutal match the 6’4” and 240lb Golota pummelled Bowe for six rounds with a combination of legal and foul blows before the Pole was disqualified for persistent fouling in the seventh round. Post fight Bowe was barely coherent a beaten man who couldn’t believe he had won. They met again in December 1996 with Bowe promising to sort the Pole out. This time Golota gave him an even more concentrated beating over eight rounds before inexplicably getting himself disqualified again. Bowe was never the same again Golota had beaten all the confidence out of him and almost certainly caused long-term damage.

After the second Golota fight Bowe retired and began behaving bizarrely. He joined the Marines and lasted only a few days. His marriage collapsed and his feuding with his wife culminated in Bowe kidnapping his children in 1999. As a result he went to jail for 18 months. He made a comeback in 2004 and has managed two wins so far against nobodies. It is anyone’s guess whether Bowe will continue. Hopefully he will stay out of the ring and avoid further injury.

Riddick Bowe is another of boxing’s sad stories a young fellow who had the world at his feet and then blew it. Maybe if he had been a little braver as champion and fought Lennox Lewis he would developed the strength of character to have avoided the decline he suffered in the mid nineties. Bowe could have beaten many of his predecessors on paper but it is questionable whether he would have troubled the likes of Ali, Louis and Dempsey. These men were flinty hard whereas Riddick always had a soft centre. Like his homeboy Mike Tyson when the going got tough their self-belief evaporated.