In doing so, Bowe became the first boxer in history to win the titles of all four major sanctioning bodies: the WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO.

His brother Henry died of AIDS,[7] and his sister Brenda was stabbed to death by a drug addict during an attempted robbery.

Prior to 1987 Pan American Games, Bowe said he had suffered a hairline fracture in his right hand during one of his two fights at the Olympic Festival in July 1987.

Bowe won the silver medal in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, outpointing Soviet Alex Miroshnichenko in the semifinals,[25] and losing a controversial match in the finals to future world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis.

The fighters fought a rematch two months later at Convention Hall in Atlantic City, with Bowe dominating and stopping Tillery in four rounds.

In July 1992, he knocked out South African Pierre Coetzer in the seventh round of a WBA heavyweight title eliminator.

A couple of weeks earlier in London, Bowe's old Olympic rival, Lennox Lewis, knocked out Canadian Donovan "Razor" Ruddock in two rounds, establishing himself as the World Boxing Council's number one contender.

The Bowe-Holyfield and Lewis-Ruddock fights were part of a mini-tournament, whereby all four fighters agreed the two winners would meet each other for the undisputed world heavyweight championship.

[29][30] Bowe's first defense of his remaining titles came on February 6, 1993, when he fought 34-year-old former champion Michael Dokes at Madison Square Garden and knocked him out in the first round.

This fight was also known for a bizarre stunt in which parachutist James "Fan Man" Miller dropped into the open air arena, landing in the ropes by Bowe's corner.

In March 1995, Bowe won the WBO version of the world heavyweight championship by knocking down England's Herbie Hide six times en route to scoring a sixth-round knockout.

In June 1995, after a heated build up, Bowe defended the WBO heavyweight title against his archrival in the amateurs, Jorge Luis González, At the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

After defeating Holyfield in the third bout of their trilogy, Bowe was matched against undefeated heavyweight contender Andrew Golota at the Madison Square Garden in an HBO Boxing event.

[32] Though ahead on points, Golota was penalized several times for low blows to the testes, and was finally disqualified in the seventh round after a combination of punches to Bowe's testicles.

The entourage began rioting, fighting with spectators, staff and policemen alike, resulting in a number of injuries before they were forced out of the arena in what evolved into a lengthy televised ring spectacle.

The fight made many sports shows, including SportsCenter, and there was a good amount of public interest in a rematch.

In a second comeback fight, in April 2005, an overweight Bowe narrowly defeated journeyman Billy Zumbrun by ten round split decision.

[34] On December 13, 2008, with the help of new manager Bob Bain, Bowe, 41, returned to the ring for the first time in over three and a half years on the undercard of the Wladimir Klitschko versus Hasim Rahman world heavyweight title bout in Mannheim, Germany and won an eight-round unanimous decision over Gene Pukall.

In 2017, The Ring magazine ranked Bowe as the 19th best heavyweight of all time in a poll of a panel of 30 trainers, matchmakers and members of the boxing media.

[36] Bowe's reputation suffered because of the weak challengers he faced as champion (an aging Michael Dokes and also Jesse Ferguson) before losing the title to Holyfield in their rematch.

Alongside Gene Tunney, Rocky Marciano, Sultan Ibragimov and Nikolai Valuev, Bowe is one of five former heavyweight champions to have never suffered a stoppage defeat during his career.

[38][39] After the Golota fights, Bowe retired from boxing and decided to join the United States Marine Corps Reserve.

He said he made the decision both to make his mother proud and to rededicate himself to training, with the intention of returning to boxing shortly after.

[41] Shortly after winning his first title against Evander Holyfield, Bowe saw a news story on television that revealed a million dollars worth of medicines donated to the Somali refugees and orphans were not able to be transported to the war-torn region due to a lack of funds to pay for the charter aircraft needed.

Bowe immediately had his representatives contact AmeriCares, the NGO leading the effort, and pledged the 100,000 dollars needed to fund the trip[42] - on the condition he could go to the country with the goods, and make sure they got to their intended recipients.

In 1995, when Alexis Denny was in Indonesia on other business, she read Asian news coverage of Rodolfo Yap, a young man in the Philippines who was electrocuted while positioning his antenna so his family could watch a Riddick Bowe fight.

She relayed this news to Bowe, and explained to the media at the time 'The heavyweight champion was very moved by the story and having lost a brother and a sister earlier in life, decided to make a financial contribution to the family of Mr.

[45] Thinking it would reconcile his marriage, Bowe went to his wife's Cornelius, North Carolina, home and threatened her with a knife, handcuffs, duct tape, and pepper spray.

[45] Bowe agreed to a plea bargain of guilty to "interstate domestic violence", and was sentenced to 18 to 24 months in prison.

Also that year, Bowe appeared in an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, entitled "You Bet Your Life", as a bully named "Bo".