This past Thursday evening I got a chance to witness first hand something  I hope I don't have to see again, Riddick Bowe in the ring. I have never been the type of person who quickly writes off a fighter after one fight. I have also never been one of those people who always rant and rave that so and so should retire. I have always been a believer, that if a fighter is mentally healthy and able to fight, then they should be allowed to fight. I have never been one to try and say that a fighter should retire, that is until Thursday night.

    On Thursday, I saw a former great heavyweight champ look even less than ordinary, but even more scary, he didn't look capable of being in a boxing ring. I'm not just talking about Bowe being very overweight (280 pounds), or looking rusty. He looked like the definition of what the old school guys would call punch drunk. I'm not a doctor, and I'm not an expert, but I could see plainly that Riddick Bowe should not have been in the ring. To me he looked slow with his punches, but more importantly, with his reflexes. Bowe fought a journeyman fighter by the name of Billy Zumbrun, who was supposed to make Bowe look good in his first fight on national TV in eight years. Instead Bowe squeaked out a split decision, one which many including myself, thought he lost.

    How can Riddick Bowe get beat to the punch, or be too slow to avoid a shot by a guy named Zumbrun, whose claim to fame was that he beat Butterbean? I don't mean to knock Zumbrun, he was game and came to fight, but a Riddick Bowe anywhere close to his prime would have killed this guy. The only thing I noticed from Bowe that had any resemblance to the Bowe we last saw in 1996 was his jab. What was most disturbing was watching a Riddick Bowe too slow with his punches to catch a fighter like Zumbrun, and too slow to avoid Zumbrun when he came inside. Zumbrun seemed to be able to get inside on Bowe and get out of there before Riddick could touch him. To me it looked worse than ring rust, even an extended ring rust. Bowe's reflexes looked very slow, and even his punches looked slow and had little bite. After the fight listening to Bowe talk, you could sometimes hear slurring in his speech. Another indication of the term punch drunk...

    It was sad for me to see a once great fighter get worked by a journeyman fighter, but even sadder to see this once great champ slow on his punches, reflexes, and even speech. I know that after the fight Bowe, and his trainer said that he's still just getting back, and he's still rusty. I would love to be able to accept this explanation, but my eyes wouldn't let me. I also realize this is only Bowe's second fight in 8 years, but that doesn't explain the reflexes and the speech. I truly hope that I'm wrong, because I  respect the ability that Bowe once had, a fighter who left Boxing with a 40-1 record, who had some memorable battles with Evander Holyfield for the heavyweight title. But, I truly hope that somebody steps in and realizes that he shouldn't be fighting. I also hope that people are not using Bowe's name to make a buck,  not thinking about the long term ramifications of his being in the ring in his present state.

    The thought scares me,  Bowe fighting even a fringe heavyweight contender after seeing how slow he was on his feet, and wondering what each and every hard blow may be doing to him. This is the type of piece I never thought I would write, and probably will never write again. I've never been one to say when a guy should retire, but I hope this time, after seeing it firsthand, that Riddick Bowe does retire.

    Not to keep ranting, but did anyone watch the Barrera-Fana Pay Per View on Saturday night? All I could keep saying is that I can't believe this card is 40$. In fairness to Golden Boy Promotions, who I think is a great promotional company, and has put on a number of great cards in their short existence, I can't believe this was a PPV at all. Now, Golden Boy got a lot of tough breaks, this card was originally scheduled to be heavily supported by its undercard, but the only original undercard bout on this card was the Choko Hernandez-Fernando Montiel fight. A potential super bantamweight unification fight with Oscar Larios and Joan Guzman fell through, and an interesting bout featuring Juan Lazcano also fell through. Even a bout featuring hard hitting prospect Abner Mares fell through. So, Golden Boy got some bad breaks, but still 40 bucks for these four bouts, c'mon!

    I watched the fight with a friend of mine, Jose Hernandez, a photographer with BRC, and he said it best when he said that this would have been a bad card even if it was a non-PPV HBO card. You had one fight with a 2-0 fighter against a fighter with a below 500 record. Another fight with a great prospect (Vicente Escobedo), but a prospect who had had only one other pro fight. The only attractive fight on the card (Montiel-Hernandez) turned out to be a one sided Montiel exhibition. Then we had the main event, which was as one sided as they come, as Barrera easily destroyed his South African challenger, the same challenger that he had tried to build up all week. I have no problem with Barrera taking an easier fight, especially after his last fight with Morales, but it should have never been a PPV, it should have been on regular HBO, or maybe as Jose said, it would have even been a bad card for regular HBO.

     This card was actually ten dollars more thAn the ESPN pay per view coming up in two weeks, and the ESPN card has four intriguing fights. This card had one intriguing fight and three mismatches or showcases. Hopefully this doesn't happen again anytime soon. Well enough with the ranting, I don't mean to hate on the game of Boxing, because I'm not one to usually do that. I'm not here to say Boxing is hurting just because of what happened with these two cards this past weekend. This was just a little blip on the radar. There are a lot of exciting events in the Boxing world coming up like Wright-Trinidad, the ESPN pay per view and many others. I'm even looking  forward to this Friday's ESPN card which features Antwon Echols versus Kingsley Ikeke, and as much as I complained about this past weekend, I did think the ESPN card in Miami was an excellent card FNF card, so it wasn't all bad. I just hope we don't see Riddick Bowe in the ring anymore, and please, no more PPVs like we had this past Saturday.