Bowe Fights His Way Back From a Place in Oblivion : Boxing: Once he was champion, but now he isn’t listed among the recognized contenders. He meets Hide tonight to try to change that.

Not far off an exit ramp on the long road back to the heavyweight title is a nondescript concrete building, about the size of rest-stop washroom, in which a boxer sweats through his workday.

In a square ring that occupies nearly all of the square inches in the Palm Springs Boxing Club, Riddick Bowe almost has to duck his 6-foot-5 frame to avoid the overhead beams while he stalks his sparring partner, Everett (Big Foot) Martin.

As Bowe perspires, a wall poster stares daggers at him.

The poster-boy is Mike Tyson, posed with gloves up in headier times.

You can’t help but connect the dots to these young former champions, both heavyweight division outcasts: Tyson because he was found guilty of rape, Bowe for more inexplicable reasons.

After weeks of training, Bowe will plop behind the wheel of his custom-made motor home and steer it back onto Interstate 10, destination Las Vegas, Herbie Hide and the championship road less traveled.

To get back the title he held from November, 1992, to November, 1993, Bowe has had to do an end run on the boxing organizations that have shunned him. Tonight, at the MGM Grand, Bowe fights Hide for the lightly regarded World Boxing Organization title.

Bowe, 27, hopes victory will give instant credibility to the WBO and, in turn, make it impossible for him to be further ignored.

Why Bowe fell from grace in the heavyweight division is one of boxing’s most perplexing questions.

In a 37-fight career, he has lost once--a majority decision to Evander Holyfield on Nov. 6, 1993. Then, like a man going through a trapdoor, Bowe fell out of the top-10 rankings of the World Boxing Assn., the International Boxing Federation and the World Boxing Council.

One of the top contenders, according to those organizations, is Bruce Seldon, whom Bowe knocked out in the first round on Aug. 9, 1991.

And 38 of 50 boxing writers surveyed recently ranked Bowe the top heavyweight in the world.

It is no secret that Bowe is paying a stiff political price for his association with Rock Newman, a fire-and-brimstone manager who has alienated just about everyone in boxing.

When Bowe was champion, Newman maintained a death-grip on the division and displayed a degree of independence--many would say arrogance--seldom seen. Not content to call the shots for the champion, he vowed to to shine a light into boxing’s dark corners and watch the rats scurry.

He stood on soap boxes and called the organizations corrupt. He presided as Bowe literally dumped his WBC championship belt into a trash can when the WBC demanded the new champion fight Lennox Lewis.

But a year after he won the title, Bowe made a critical error. He lost it.

The Newman-haters celebrated as if it were Mardi Gras.

“A lot of what he says about the organizations are true,” says promoter Bob Arum, a Newman adversary. “But Rock Newman is a hypocrite. An evil guy. When he was on top, he . . . on everybody. I don’t think you’ll find anybody in boxing, whatever side they’re on, who will say a good word about that man. People can’t wait to do something against him. And, unfortunately, against Riddick.”

Of his critics, Newman says, “I wear their abhorrence as a badge of honor. The fact they don’t like me and they don’t consider me a part of them, that is a badge of honor. If I ever felt like I was accepted, I’d go take a shower.”

Caught in the middle is Bowe, a mostly likable guy who has suffered more for one close defeat than any other boxer in recent memory.

“I lost a very close decision to Evander Holyfield,” Bowe says as veteran trainer Eddie Futch tapes his hands before a workout in Palm Springs. “To not have me rated, it’s crazy. But you know, they’re all corrupt, and if I bought a spot (in the ratings), I guess I could be No. 1. But we’re not going to buy a spot.”

Bowe knows he has paid a price for staying with Newman.

“It’s not me they’re trying to pay back, it’s my manager,” he acknowledges. “I guess they feel like they’re getting back at him. But there’s more than one way to skin a monkey.”

No one can deny that Newman has made Bowe very rich. Newman says Bowe has earned $40 million in the ring under his guidance. He will earn $3 million more for his fight Saturday against Hide, $10 million more for a scheduled fight against Jorge Luis Gonzalez, $15 million more for a proposed fight with Holyfield down the road.

“Then he’s going to fight Mike Tyson at some point,” Newman says, “and he’s going to make $50 million. If you call that damaging a career, I want somebody to damage me.”

But what about Bowe’s place in ring history? What about his reputation? What became of Bowe the innocent, one of the 13 children who survived the tough Brownsville section of Brooklyn? The Bowe who once walked his mother, Dorothy, to work each night?

Newman bashers say Bowe has tarnished his own reputation by becoming too much like the rough-and-tumble manager who once punched one of Bowe’s opponents, Elijah Tillery; too much like the Newman who tore into the paraglider who dropped in on Bowe-Holyfield II that strange November night at Caesars Palace.

Since losing his title, Bowe has graded a D-plus in citizenship.

Last August, his fight against Buster Mathis Jr. was ruled no contest after the referee said Bowe had punched Mathis while he was down.

Last December, at a Los Angeles news conference, Bowe sucker-punched opponent Larry Donald.

Donald filed a lawsuit, then dropped it.

Bowe has apologized for the incident, saying it was a result of frustration over being shut out of the heavyweight picture.

“It was very unbecoming of myself, and I apologized for that,” Bowe says. “Sometimes you can catch a person at the wrong time. I was edgy, raring to go, and Larry was running off at the mouth.”

There were also ring concerns. Newman, a political activist with a boom-box voice, had plans for Bowe after he won the title.

Bowe went on a world tour, visiting Nelson Mandela in South Africa. He toured the sad sites of Somalia, broke bread with Pope John Paul II in Rome.

Meanwhile, back in the gym. . . .

Well, that was the problem.

Futch, who took on Bowe after Bowe had lost the gold medal to Lewis in the 1988 Olympics, grew concerned.

Bowe was out of training for five months at one point.

“When he was on top, everybody got a little piece of Riddick Bowe,” Futch says. “He changed. He lost focus. As a young fighter, he needed to pay attention to techniques. But he went off to Somalia and Italy.

“I feared it. I’ve been in boxing 62 years. I’ve had 18 world champions. I knew it went this way.”

Of Bowe’s most recent lapses, Futch says, “He’s been frustrated. He’s done a lot of things he wouldn’t have done before. It’s not intentional.”

Newman, however, says the Bowe-mobile is back. By positioning him to win the WBO title, Newman believes Bowe will assume George Foreman’s role as peoples’ champion once Foreman retires at year’s end.

With or without the blessing of boxing’s organizations, Newman’s thinking goes, the public will demand that Bowe be recognized.

Newman isn’t likely to get any help from the organizations he despises. He has, if anything, become more dedicated to snuffing out boxing’s ruling parties.

“If it sounds like I’m on a soap box to crush and kill these organizations, it’s because I am,” Newman shouts. “They must be dismantled.”

For Newman, every day is fight day.

“I really haven’t been that vocal until lately about the total corruption,” Newman says. “But there are payoffs that I am aware of. I am knowledgeable of corruption in boxing. I’ll tell you, in short order, I’m going to start naming names, dates and amounts.

“They all criticize me. I’m saying very provocative things here, and they’re all claiming Rock Newman is crazy. Yet no one’s taken me to court. So I’m saying (IBF President) Bob Lee is corrupt, and he has corrupted himself in illegal ways. I know where the skeletons are buried in boxing. There is a veil, a silent veil, about the payoffs, the kickbacks, the corrupt things. And I’m breaking them.”

Lee did not return phone calls to answer Newman’s charges, or to explain why his organization does not believe Riddick Bowe, 35-1--one no-contest--29 knockouts, deserves to be ranked as one of the world’s best heavyweights.

Boxing Notes

Tonight’s fight will be shown live on HB0 about 7:20 PST. . . . Herbie Hide (26-0, 25 knockouts) was born in Owerra, Nigeria, but grew up in England. He won the World Boxing Organization title last March, knocking out Michael Bentt in the seventh round. . . . Riddick Bowe weighed in at 241 pounds, the same as for his December victory over Larry Donald and six pounds more than when he won the heavyweight title from Evander Holyfield in 1992. Hide weighed 214. . . . On the undercard, Jorge Luis Gonzalez (22-0, 21 KOs) fights Bryan Scott (20-1, 12 KOs) in a heavyweight bout.