Bowe Calls On Reinforcements In Bid For Discipline

Who among us cannot identify with Riddick Bowe?

“Every time I go on a diet for 14 days,” he is fond of saying, “all I ever lose is two weeks.”

And then he will smile one of those forlorn smiles that suggests: I’m weak, what can I say? All you can do in such moments is nod at him sympathetically, and then return to your triple-scoop hot fudge sundae.

Bowe is a lovable pug, which may seem an odd thing to say of a man whose best talent is knocking out other people. He is, like a good many fighters, and most of us, a prisoner of his appetite.

Some of us seek to escape in a sea of flesh, others indulge in the contents of a pharmacist’s store, others swim through a distillery, mouth open. Bowe is seduced by sweet potato pie. Pizza makes him swoon. If the night watchman rattles the locks in a KFC at 3 in the morning, Bowe bolts upright in bed and asks his wife; “Do you smell that?”

The cycle Bowe is locked into is to binge, rush himself into passable shape, fight, then binge again. He has exhausted, and frustrated, every sports nutritionist in the business. He will take a chastened vow of deprivation, with every honest intention, and then somewhere along the line inevitably succumb.

As a result, Bowe is that most familiar of athlete - one who has never been all that he could be.

His gifts are obvious and stunning - heavy, punishing jab and destructive overhand right. He should have been - and should still be - heavyweight champion of the world. But he has held only a portion of that title, and then for barely a year.

No one is more exasperated by Riddick Bowe than Riddick Bowe. And now he has done a curious and extraordinary and desperate thing. He has joined the Marines.

He has not done this because of a sudden surge of patriotism. Or as a bizarre publicity stunt. Partly he is doing it because, growing up in blight and despair, he saw the Marines as a way out, an escape from the streets. It is hardly an uncommon adolescent fantasy. And now he is closing in on 30, an age many men see as the last chance to grasp the glory of youth.

Some join the Marines for the same reason they used to join the Foreign Legion - they are running away from something. The law, perhaps. A vengeful ex-spouse.

But Bowe has the unmistakable look of a man who is running “toward” something. What is it the military stands for? Discipline. Riddick Bowe has spent his entire athletic career in a futile struggle to achieve selfdiscipline. It is not difficult to see this as a final attempt to empower himself, to find the strength to take control of his appetites, to take back control of his life.

Extreme. Of course. Misguided? Perhaps.

But if you know Bowe then you know him to be, at heart, an honorable and decent man who goes to uncommon, sometimes naive, lengths. What other athletes do you know who have decorated their torsos with tattoos? Dozens, right? But Bowe’s tattoos are needle portraits of his wife and their five children.

His intentions are always well-meaning. If he doesn’t always choose the most prudent path to get there, well, that is part of is charm. And so it is not difficult to imagine that, after being outboxed twice by Andrew Golota, after increasing evidence that his skills are deteriorating, after Eddie Futch, that most patient of men, had given up and walked out on him, Riddick Bowe found himself desperate, and thinking depressed, desperate, melancholy thoughts:

“What you ought to do is get your rear in gear and join the Marines. Straighten you out once and for all.”

And the more he thought about it, the more appealing the whim became.

What is boot camp, after all, but training camp? What is 4 a.m. reveille to a man who is used to being awakened before dawn to do roadwork? What is mess hall cuisine compared to the foul-tasting elixirs and exotic ground-kelp meals that Bowe has forced down his gullet in past vain attempts to melt away the suet?

The difference is, you don’t leave boot camp at sundown. You are never away from the relentless scrutiny of the drill sergeant. The midnight snack will get you a week’s worth of KP. You are never left alone with your appetites.

This is a man who has made more than $100 million with his fists and has managed to hang on to a handful of it. He could retire in comfort. But there is a part of him that knows how good he could really be, and there is a part of him that longs to be in control of himself.

Most of us eventually surrender. But Riddick Bowe resists. He is trying to redeem a million broken promises.

This is a fight worth winning.