Recently, I heard news of retired former boxing heavyweight champion, Riddick Bowe, making his debut in muay thai. I simply thought it was something to get his name in the press and he wouldn’t actually go through with it; I was wrong.
Friday evening (June 14, 2013) in Pattaya, Thailand, Bowe stepped into the ring for the first time against Russian heavyweight, Levgen Golovin (7-0), and commenced to get leg kicked to the ground, eventually resulting in a TKO lost for Bowe in the 2nd round.
After the fight, Bowe stated “You can recover from a head shot or a body shot, but when you get kicked in the leg it lasts a long time,” he said. “My leg is still hurting. I don’t know how long it’s been – 15 minutes?”
When speaking with reports, an important question was answered by Bowe, would he return to muay thai?
“I had a lot of fun. I’m going to do it again. Next time it’s going to be different,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”
Golovin, who remains undefeated, shook his head and said, “It would be a big mistake. It’s not for him… He’s too slow and a bit too old.”
The 45-year-old former world heavyweight boxing champion came to a rude awakening on Friday that Muay Thai is just as punishing.
Review: 2013-06-14, fight not particularly exciting between Riddick Bowe and Levgen Golovin: it gets two stars. The undefeated Levgen Golovin ranked as the No.7 heavyweight in the world entered the fight with a record of 9-0-0 while the 44-year-old, former World boxing champion, Riddick Bowe is at his professional muay thai debut (he has a boxing record of 43-1-0, 33 KOs). Bowe vs Golovin is the main event of “Muaythai Super-fight”. Watch the video!
Three-time world boxing champion Jeff Fenech _ who was the first to beat Thailand’s great Muay Thai champion Samart Payak-arun for the WBC world boxing title _ trained Tyson for his final professional fight.