Tennessee won't license Bowe

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe is challenging Tennessee boxing officials, who have refused to grant a license to a fighter they believe has brain damage.

Bowe, 37, insists he's healthy and should be allowed to fight. He will be at a hearing Thursday in Nashville to appeal the state's decision.

Tennessee boxing officials, who licensed Mike Tyson in 2002 when no other state would, got tougher with Bowe and quickly rejected his application last October.

Bowe has other options, having fought twice in the past six months, including a victory last week in California. He's also licensed in Missouri and Washington, D.C.

The fighter could not be reached for comment Wednesday through manager Jimmy Adams.

But in an affidavit dated March 3, Bowe said he believes former manager Rock Newman and Dr. Margaret Goodman, the head of the medical board for the Nevada Athletic Boxing Commission, have biased Tennessee officials.

"I believe they don't want to see me box as they have nothing monetarily now to gain from me boxing," Bowe said in the affidavit.

Tennessee officials base their denial on a transcript from a February 2000 sentencing hearing in which Bowe's attorneys convinced a federal judge that the fighter's brain was so damaged by punches that he didn't know what he was doing when he kidnapped his then- wife and five children in 1998.

"You'll say anything," Adams told The Associated Press. "I would. I don't want to go to jail."

State boxing officials declined to comment. The state's answer to the lawsuit points out that the appeals court overturned only Bowe's 30-day sentence, not the finding of the hearing.

This case is being closely followed by other boxing commissions, especially in states that recently issued Bowe a license and those where he has indicated he might apply, according to Tim Lueckenhoff, administrator of the Missouri State Athletic Commission and president of the Association of Boxing Commissions.

"Here in Missouri, I would have hoped this case would have went to trial and had been settled before he applied here because it would have helped us out a lot," Lueckenhoff said. "If the court rules that Tennessee had a right to deny the license, we might think ourselves, 'Maybe we should have taken that shot too."'

Adams lives in Nashville and had two fights lined up for Bowe in Memphis that fell through without a license. He just wants someone in Tennessee to look at their medical tests before refusing Bowe.

"It's just not right to say we aren't fit. It takes more than not giving Bowe a license to prove that Tennessee has a strong commission," Adams said.

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