Don’t hold your breath just yet, but rumors are surfacing that boxer Riddick Bowe is going to return to the ring in the very near future -- in a muay Thai bout.
“He’s very excited,” Kru Airr Phanthip, who, along with Kru Chan, will be training Bowe for the bout, told the website. “He has good hands and elbows.”
As a professional boxer, Bowe compiled a 43-1 record, with his only loss coming to Evander Holyfield in 1995. Known as “Big Daddy,” the 45-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y., native last fought in 2008, defeating Gene Pukall via unanimous decision in Germany.
This is not the first time Bowe has contemplated testing the waters in another combat sports arena. In 2007, Bowe told Sherdog.com that he wanted to be the first man to hold titles in boxing and MMA at the same time. The boxer announced a “tentative” debut for Dec. 12 of that year at the Circus Nightclub in Hollywood, Calif.
"I'm going to be a little anxious and what have you," Bowe said at the time, "but I think as time progresses, I should pick it up like I pick everything else up."
Of course, Bowe’s MMA debut never did come to fruition. If things go as planned this time around, he will begin training for his upcoming fight in Las Vegas starting in April.