Champion Riddick Bowe
Steps Into a New Arena
After two boxing world titles, prison and bankruptcy, Mr.
Bowe hopes to cement another legacy: as a restaurateur.
Bowe hopes to cement another legacy: as a restaurateur.
Three
men stood on a street in Harlem, handing out fliers and pointing to a
big man sitting alone inside a small restaurant with four tables called
Bowe’s. He looked around, eager for company.
“That’s the two-time heavyweight champion of the world,” they told pedestrians on West 116th Street. “That’s Riddick Bowe.”
“Say hello to the champ,” one of them said. “Go inside.”
Riddick
“Big Daddy” Bowe, as booming ringside announcers once introduced him at
fights, towered above Harlemites entering to meet him. He signed
autographs on takeout menus. He posed for photos. He threw jabs into the
air.
A woman applied lip gloss with a pocket mirror while waiting to take a selfie with him. She was shocked when he stood up.
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“Damn,” she said. “Big Daddy.”
“That’s what they say,” he said.
Kitchen
workers prepared rotisserie chickens, and juice blenders rattled as
screens in the small seating area flashed decades-old images of Mr. Bowe
devastating his opponents. His dismantling uppercut into Evander
Holyfield’s chin, in Las Vegas in 1992, appeared several times. A
punching bag hung in a corner for decoration. The sign outside displayed
a muscular and glistening Mr. Bowe in his prime with a title belt
draped over his shoulder, and the name of his place, Bowe’s.
A
visitor to the restaurant asked Mr. Bowe, who is now 47, to see the big
ring glistening on his hand. He received it in June when he was
inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
“I don’t take it off much,” he said, squeezing it down his finger.
A store manager jostled him. “You showed it to me this morning, Bowe.”
Mr. Bowe smiled. “I guess I did.”
Bowe’s
is a narrow establishment on 116th Street and Frederick Douglass
Boulevard that sells rotisserie chicken and fresh juices. It is discreet
enough that you could walk right past it. It is also the latest stop
for Riddick Bowe, the two-time former world champion heavyweight boxer,
who has struggled with life after boxing since he retired from the sport
in 1996.
He
is the restaurant’s face, its theme and one of its owners. Meals are
named after him, and he stops by at least twice a month for
meet-and-greet sessions.
He
owns the restaurant with his fast-talking manager, Ashley Khan, and
they hope the Harlem storefront, which opened in March, will be the
foundation for a chain. Another location is planned farther uptown, as
well as one in the Bronx.
“We
have big plans,” Mr. Khan said. “I’m hoping he can dress up like Santa
Claus for Christmas and hand out turkeys. I want to make a special Bowe
juicer. It could be like the George Foreman grill.”
If
starting a hole-in-the-wall juice-and-rotisserie-chicken franchise
seems like a comedown for a boxer who earned over $80 million, then Mr.
Bowe’s last decade is worth considering: a vortex of misfortune that
included bankruptcy, failed comebacks and incarceration. The restaurant
is a welcome turn of events.
“I’m hoping it will take off,” Mr. Bowe said.
The
post-career path of boxing’s champions is frequently distant from the
glories of the ring, and Mr. Bowe’s life has been a sequence of detours
since his pinnacle as one of the heavyweight division’s titans in the
early 1990s.
He
secured his place in boxing history in 1992, when he was 25, by beating
the heavyweight titleholder, Mr. Holyfield, in a violent tug-of-war
that lasted 12 rounds. It commenced an epic trilogy of bouts between the
men that became one of boxing’s famed rivalries.
When
Mr. Bowe first held his title belt aloft, his bleak childhood in
Brownsville, Brooklyn, must have felt incomprehensibly far away. He had
grown up with 12 siblings, down the street from Mike Tyson, in an
infamous housing complex where he said finding dead bodies on the street
in the morning was commonplace. He escaped by finding a vocation at a
boxing gym and soon emerged as one of New York’s finest fighters,
winning four Golden Gloves tournaments. He represented the United States
at the 1988 summer Olympics in Seoul, losing to Lennox Lewis and taking
home the silver medal.
Some
believed that Mr. Bowe, who fought in a golden era of heavyweights, had
the potential to be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of fighter: an heir to
Muhammad Ali. Eddie Futch, the famed trainer who instructed Joe Louis
and Larry Holmes, took on Mr. Bowe, seeing such promise.
“With his natural tools,” Mr. Futch said of Mr. Bowe in the early ’90s, “he could be the best heavyweight I’ve ever had.”
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But
Mr. Bowe’s legacy has become emblematic of how cruel boxing can be, and
how far its champions can fall. His career after he defeated Mr.
Holyfield is remembered as a descent into the trappings of wealth and a
crumbling of discipline.
“Bowe
had a curse,” said Ron Borges, a sports columnist for The Boston
Herald. “And that was he had no second dream. When he won the title, he
had nothing else he wanted to do. He wanted to be the heavyweight
champion, and he got it.”
Boxing
fans awaited another masterpiece like the Holyfield bout but were
treated to a procession of lesser opponents. The most anticipated fight,
against Mr. Lewis, never happened — some attribute that to fear on Mr.
Bowe’s part, others to mismanagement. After defeating Andrew Golota, a
Pole who won the bronze medal in Seoul, in two fights best remembered
for their brutality and Mr. Golota’s disqualification for low blows, Mr.
Bowe quit boxing at 29.
When
he retired, Mr. Bowe was worth $15 million, he has said, and he spent
it amply: on 10 houses, 26 cars, furs and diamonds, and accommodations
and monthly allowances for his large family. The millennium, however,
would bring bankruptcy, an expensive divorce, a comeback attempt and 18
months in prison for abduction and domestic violence. His fighter’s
physique also left him, as did his smooth voice, warped into slur,
probably as a result of blows in the ring. “I hate hearing my voice on
the radio,” he recently said.
Since
filing for bankruptcy in 2005, Mr. Bowe has tried becoming a trucker,
taught exercise classes, sold signed memorabilia at conventions and
reinvented himself as a Muay Thai kickboxer. His one match, in Thailand
to a Russian opponent 15 years his junior, lasted only two rounds. He lost.
“I don’t have as much money as I used to, but I’m fine,” he said.
“If people want to help, they can send money to the Riddick Bowe Better Life Foundation,” he said wryly.
Though
his fortune has dissipated, Mr. Bowe said he earns enough from public
appearances and has three homes: one in New York, one in New Jersey and
one in Florida, where he spends most of his time with his wife and
daughter.
But
he enjoys going to Harlem and says he has been seriously considering
moving back to New York, where his path to the heavyweight throne began.
When examined at its roots, Mr. Bowe’s legacy as one of boxing’s casualties can seem unfair.
He
was born Riddick Lamonte Bowe in 1968 in East New York, Brooklyn, the
12th of 13 children, to Dorothy Bowe. His father was practically
invisible.
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His
mother moved her children across the borough in a constant search for
cheaper rent — Coney Island, Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant — but Mr. Bowe
would spend his formative years in Brownsville, at 250 Lott Avenue in a
bleak housing complex nicknamed Gunsmoke City for the frequency of
gunfights.
The
teenage Riddick didn’t slide into vice and dwelled instead within walls
of discipline. He trained at a gym in Bedford-Stuyvesant after school
every day. He was only the second child in his family to graduate from
high school. With his imposing size, he protected his mother, walking
her to her job at a plastics factory every night.
But
while Mr. Bowe managed to avoid being swallowed by neighborhood
violence, his siblings did not. His sister Brenda was murdered when he
was 18. His brother Darryl was stabbed in the chest in front of a fruit
stand near their high school. Another brother, Henry, was in and out of
jail and later died of AIDS.
“It was survival of the fittest,” Mr. Bowe said.
Being virtually the last in line in such a large family, he said, influenced him as a boxer as much as anything else.
“I
had to fight to put my socks on,” he said. “That’s why I’m a great
fighter. My brothers and sisters didn’t realize they were creating a
monster. And then that monster made it to the Hall of Fame.”
“You
need to have that killer instinct,” he added. “It can’t be taught.
Where does it come from? A couple slaps. A couple things you had denied
to you.”
He
doesn’t speak with his family anymore, however, and partly blames them
for his financial woes. He carried them out of Brownsville, he said, and
bought houses for them near his own home at the time in Fort
Washington, Md. He paid their taxes and provided allowances, but he
believes that he came to be perceived as little more than a breathing
bank account.
“They tore those houses up,” he said. “They don’t love me. They can’t love me.”
“I
don’t speak with my mother,” he said. “Whenever I wanted to talk about
my problems, she would just ask me when I was going to send her more
money.”
“I’ve cried many a day and many a night,” he concluded, “but things happen how they happen.”
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During
Mr. Bowe’s recent stay in New York, he agreed to take me on a tour of
his old neighborhood. He hadn’t visited East New York or Brownsville in
over 10 years.
The
last time he entered Thomas Jefferson High School was in 1992, after
wresting the title from Mr. Holyfield. He pulled up in a limousine to
show off his belt, give a speech and hug his favorite teachers. This
time, he arrived via Uber, and summer hours were in session. But as he
lumbered toward the sleepy school, two men in a van noticed him and
yelled out from their window: “It’s the champ!”
His celebrity grew inside. Security guards rushed to take photos.
“That’s right,” said Mr. Bowe. “The champ is here.”
“You look different,” said a guard.
“You’re saying I look fat in a nice way,” he replied.
Mr.
Bowe was disappointed to learn that the school had not erected a plaque
in his honor, but perhaps none was needed. He was stopped constantly
during walks around the area. Within four hours, at least 50 people had
taken selfies with him.
He
was swarmed again at his old gym, now called the New Bed-Stuy Boxing
Center, and was pleased to discover a mural of him was painted on a
wall. People asked how things were going.
“I’m just rolling with the punches,” he said. “You know how the old fighters do.”
His phone rang.
“World’s finest,” he answered. “Big Daddy. Be brief.”
An
amateur promoter was calling, hoping to sell him on “one last fight.”
Mr. Bowe seemed fatigued by the idea and put the call on speakerphone.
“You
get paid for public appearances right now,” the voice crackled. “But
your name is starting to fade. Those public appearances will be worth
half of what they are. I am proposing a fight that would be a publicity
stunt to bring your name back. I am not a money train. I am not saying
this is a golden ticket. This isn’t a long-term contract ...” The voice
trailed off.
Mr. Bowe politely ended the conversation. “I get calls like this all the time,” he said.
He
is accustomed to people wanting things from him. We stopped earlier at
his old housing project, the notorious Gunsmoke City. Initially, he was
reluctant to leave the car.
“I’m not getting out,” he said. “I thought we were just going to pass by.”
We
approached its entrance, which was patrolled by police officers, and
entered a desolate courtyard. Slim, shirtless men with sagging pants
perched against handrails and watched him. Groups of women smoking
turned their heads. One lone man, a bit unsteady and drinking from a
plastic cup, called out his name first.
“It’s Riddick Bowe!”
Mr.
Bowe again became a center of attention. People spoke of how he once
purchased cable for them, how they had helped him with homework and how
they had not seen him in so long.
“Remember all we used to eat was rib tips and fried rice?” asked Keefe Nimmons, an old friend.
Acquaintances
eventually began asking Mr. Bowe why they had not heard from him; a few
men asked if he could lend them money. Mr. Bowe left the courtyard, but
about a dozen people followed him outside.
“You’ve got a lot of people venting here,” Mr. Nimmons told me. “They think they’re owed something.”
As
Mr. Bowe waited for a car, one woman who had pursued him grew agitated.
“My mom took care of him!” she yelled. “He didn’t give us nothing! I’m
going to get some publicity off of this. I’m going to tell the real
story!”
She screamed after him when a car finally arrived: “Give me some damn money this time!”
Mr. Bowe was reflective during the ride. “Everybody wants to get paid,” he said.
“They
hate you,” he mused. “You come and go, and they’re still here. They’re
frustrated you made something of yourself. But I don’t hold it against
them.”
It must have gnawed at him. He called me the next day to vent.
“I
still can’t believe that one guy,” he said. “He asked me where his
money was. I did the hard work. I made something of myself. I deserve
what I made. That’s why I don’t like going back to Brownsville.”
When
Mr. Bowe is at his juice shop, however, he is treated as nothing less
than the champ, and the other day his most pressing concern was the
preparation of his chicken wrap.
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“You make this?” he asked a young server. She nodded. “It doesn’t have the sauce how I like it.”
She rushed to the kitchen and brought it back slathered with hot sauce. “You’re all right,” he told her. “You go, girl.”
Later, a woman asked if she could eat with him.
“Share a table with the champ?” he said. “Sure.”
“Want to go a couple of rounds?” he asked one man. “You got a nice smile. Let’s get rid of it.”
More
admirers appeared soon enough, and they didn’t ask prickly questions,
or ask for money as repayment for homework help three decades ago, but
inquired instead about what it was like wearing the heavyweight crown.
And Mr. Bowe seemed content to relive the moments they asked about
rather than dwell on the jagged turns of his past.
Perhaps conclusions about his boxing legacy were best left to his fans.
Dirk Eduardo Bobbit, who could recall Mr. Bowe’s fights by date, refused to accept the narrative of the fallen prizefighter.
“The future is going to be bright for him here,” Mr. Bobbit said. “Riddick Bowe has found peace in Harlem.”
William Ponder, who had pointed Mr. Bowe out to his daughter with excitement, said history was harsh to the boxer.
“The
problem is that people are only judged by their failures,” he said. “We
only look at what went wrong. But Mr. Bowe is a winner. And his chicken
is good.”
These sons of bitches wanted to embarass him like this for their story!
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