The Sad Story of Riddick Bowe

I want to warn you, this is a sad story. It is an illustration of how much of a joke former heavyweight champion/boxing icon/and estranged wife kidnapper Riddick Bowe has become. The following events are true. I’d like to begin by apologizing if this destroys the godlike aura that I’m sure most of the population associates with a true American hero.

One day back in May, I took the sports section of the Cincinnati Enquirer into the bathroom with me, and emerged 45 minutes later giddy as a schoolgirl. According to a feature story in sports that day, Riddick Bowe would be making a comeback fight. And he would be fighting not in Vegas, Manila, or the backyard of Mike Vick’s house; he would be fighting just outside Cincinnati in Florence, KY!

Me and a coworker were determined to be a part of the spectacle. The report initially said that the fight would be held at a place called Sports of All Sorts (SOAS), and we immediately called to get tickets. A woman told us that tickets would go on sale July 5th, and to call back then. This was very exciting, although we probably should have been suspicious since SOAS is one of those family fun places with soccer fields, bball courts, go karts, bumper boats, etc. Not exactly the place to stage a big event in a seedy sport featuring a convicted kidnapper. Also, Bowe’s opponent for the fight was announced as Rocky Phillips, a Dayton, OH native whose physical appearance and 21-14 career record indicate that he’s nothing more than some guy who was laid off from the Delphi plant up there and was literally fighting for his next meal. Even the goofy white guys with moustaches you always see Mike Tyson annihilate on ESPN Classic are more intimidating. Mental red flags probably should have been thrown up because of this, but we anxiously awaited the day tickets would go on sale, blissfully ignoring the warning signs.

(The Glory Days)

When we called on July 5th to get tickets, the person as SOAS told us that the fight had been moved to Turfway Park, a horse track nearby. While it seemed stranger to have a boxing match at a horse track than at SOAS initially, we were able to rationalize it very quickly by telling ourselves that maybe this way the gambling aspect of the fight would be a little easier to regulate at a place where gambling already took place. Great call by the promoters! We called Turfway, and the person that answered told us that no one was supposed to know the fight was there, and that only one person on staff knew anything about it, and that person would be out until July 24th.

Then things got worse for the Riddick Bowe lover in all of us. There was a 1 paragraph article in the paper saying the fight had been pushed back to August 5th (a Sunday??), with no other information. Then another blurb saying that the fight had been moved to the Waterfront. Now, the Waterfront is a restaurant, and a nice one…so now Riddick Bowe was fighting in the parking lot of an operating restaurant. Were they going to rope off spaces for the ring? How would they sell tickets since people would be parking both for the fight AND the restaurant? Why would the owner of a Waterfront (a local legend) allow his high end patrons to be subjected to glancing out the window and seeing Riddick Bowe pummeling an Andy Reid look alike?

Needless to say we were saddened by the shocking plummet that Riddick Bowe had taken. To make matters worse, there seemed to be no one promoting the fight, as we could find no info on how to get tickets or who to contact for information.

Finally, an article in the Cincinnati Post confirmed what we feared. The fight, which had changed locations and dates without us knowing (and upgraded the location to a hotel parking lot), was postponed indefinitely. There were some great quotes from alleged matchmaker/promoter Don Elbaum (who is about 100 years old) saying that problems with the Kentucky Boxing and Wrestling Authority caused the cancellation and that it was a shame because they had tickets sold and a genuine buzz about the fight.
I guess that senility has started to take its toll on Elbaum. If two people genuinely interested in the fight couldn’t find the buzz or the tickets, maybe Riddick Bowe isn’t quite what I remember him as.

The fight is supposedly being rescheduled for late September, and in the meantime the hostility between Bowe and Phillips seems to have dissipated. If Riddick Bowe wants to be back in the public eye, maybe another kidnapping is the way to go. Just as OJ.      

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