What is Riddick Bowe's Net Worth?
Riddick Bowe is a retired American professional boxer who has a net worth of $30 thousand. Riddick Bowe was a two-time former world heavyweight champion who won his first WBA, WBC, and IBF in 1992. Unfortunately, Riddick Bowe has experienced some financial problems later in life. After earning $80 million during his career and retiring with $15 million "in the bank", all of Riddick's money was gone by 2009. More details on Riddick's financial problems later in this article.
Early Life
Riddick Lamont Bowe was born on August 10, 1967, in Brooklyn, New York, the twelfth of Dorothy Bowe's thirteen children. Riddick Bowe and his family grew up in a section of Brooklyn called Brownsville which was known as one of New York's toughest slums. He lost a brother Henry to the AIDS virus and a sister Brenda from stab wounds after an attempted robbery in 1988.
In 1984, at the age of 17, as an amateur boxer, Riddick knocked out James Smith in just 4 seconds. He attended Kingsborough Community College where he studied drama in hopes of acting after a boxing career, and he also took up business administration. He participated in the 1988 Seoul Olympics where he won a silver medal and was a winner of four New York Golden Gloves Championships from 1985-1988.
Boxing Career
Riddick Bowe turned pro in 1989, and he went on to become a two-time world heavyweight champion. In 1992, Bowe won the undisputed WBA, WBC, and IBF titles by defeating the unbeaten former undisputed heavyweight champion, Evander Holyfield. That same year he was named the Fighter of the Year by The Ring and the Boxing Writers' Association of America. He vacated the WBC title later that year in protest instead of defending it against number one contender Lennox Lewis. This left the title fragmented until 1999. Bowe faced Holyfield in a rematch in 1993 and narrowly lost the WBA and IBF titles for his only professional defeat.
Bowe regained a portion of the world heavyweight championship in 1995 when he defeated Herbie Hide for the WBO title. He became the first fighter in history to win all four major titles in boxing: the WBA, WBO, WBC, and IBF. Later that year, he vacated the WBO title in order to fight Holyfield a third time, this time winning decisively by knockout, the first suffered by Holyfield. In 1996, Bowe fought two bouts with Andrew Golota, but both matches ended controversially with low blows by Golota. After these fights, Bowe retired but made some low-key comebacks in 2004 and 2008.
In 2010, Boxing Scene ranked Bowe the 21st greatest heavyweight of all time. In 2015, Riddick Bowe was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
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Career Earnings & Financial Problems
Over the course of his boxing career Riddick Bowe earned $80 million from boxing purses, PPV bonuses and endorsements. According to Riddick, when he retired for the first time in the late 1990s, he had $15 million cash in the bank.
Riddick Bowe is unfortunately one of many athletes who have gone broke after successful careers. By 2009 he was so low on funds that he was regularly attending flea markets and other public meetups to offer autographs. In a March 2021 interview with VladTV, Riddick claimed his former manager stole $15 million from him.
Personal Life
Riddick married his high-school sweetheart Judy on April 27, 1988 and they have five children. After years of alleged abuse by Riddick on both his wife and children, the couple separated in May of 1998 and Judy filed for a divorce.
Five months after the separation, Bowe was arrested and later convicted of kidnapping his estranged wife and children. He served 17 months in a federal prison.
After retiring from boxing, Bowe decided to join the United States Marine Corps Reserve to make his mother proud and rededicate himself to training.
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