Riddick Bowe

CTL-E-7102 · Person · other · 1967–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07974 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-7102.

Riddick Lamont Bowe, born August 10, 1967, in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Brownsville, won the super-heavyweight silver medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics before turning professional in 1989 under trainer Eddie Futch. On November 13, 1992, he defeated the unbeaten Evander Holyfield by unanimous decision to win the WBA, WBC and IBF heavyweight titles and the undisputed championship, in a bout The Ring named its 1992 Fight of the Year. Weeks later, refusing the WBC's order to defend against mandatory challenger Lennox Lewis, Bowe dumped the WBC belt into a garbage can at a December 14, 1992 press conference and relinquished it; the WBC then declared Lewis champion. Holyfield won their 1993 rematch — Bowe's only professional defeat — and Bowe took the 1995 rubber match by eighth-round knockout, the first stoppage of Holyfield's career, after winning the WBO title from Herbie Hide, which made him, as USA Boxing records, the first boxer to win all four major sanctioning-body titles. His two 1996 wins over Andrew Golota both came by disqualification for repeated low blows, the first ending in a Madison Square Garden riot. The International Boxing Hall of Fame, which inducted him in 2015, records his final professional record as 43 wins, 1 loss and 1 no-contest, with 33 knockouts.

The record

• Also known as: Riddick Lamont Bowe, Big Daddy

Notes

Sports Encyclopedia roster CTL-SPE-0486. WBC-belt disposition, stated in the sourced form and never blended: in December 1992 Bowe RELINQUISHED the WBC title, dumping the belt into a garbage can at a press conference rather than defend against mandatory challenger Lennox Lewis, and the WBC then declared Lewis champion — he was not stripped in that episode. He WAS stripped of the separate WBO title on January 11, 1996, for signing to fight Andrew Golota instead of the WBO's No. 1 contender; the two episodes are distinct and are kept distinct. Golota bouts: both 1996 wins came by disqualification for repeated low blows; the first, at Madison Square Garden, ended in a riot involving the fighters' entourages — carried as sourced, without embellishment. Identity: this record is Riddick Lamont Bowe of Brooklyn/Brownsville, 'Big Daddy'; no name variance. Blocked edge: Evander Holyfield is homed in the live graph (CTL-E-6003), but the trilogy is a bout relationship only — prose carries it, no edge minted. Blocked edge: trainer Eddie Futch is roster CTL-SPE-0521, not in the live graph and not in this lane — no edge. Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): Bowe's peak was brief and genuine — the only man to beat Holyfield twice in a trilogy and stop him — and his record is equally the story of the Lewis fight that never happened, which the garbage-can press conference made permanent. Photo: CLEARED, Public domain, 1993 U.S. Army photograph whose Commons file description names heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe visiting the Pan African Center in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Relationships

• Eddie Futch — student of
  Eddie Futch trained Riddick Bowe, who handed Evander Holyfield his first professional defeat under Futch's training (International Boxing Hall of Fame, carried in Futch's record). Edge emitted by the head at assembly from Lane D's cross-lane flag.

Sources

• International Boxing Hall of Fame. "Riddick Bowe." IBHOF.com. Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• BoxRec. "Riddick Bowe." BoxRec Wiki. Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)
• USA Boxing. "One of the Best All Time." USABOXING.org, March 9, 2020. Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)

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Record CTL-E-7102 · Combined Graph record U-07974 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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