Boxer confident he will prevail in bid for Tennessee license

AP Photo TNJR101-103

By TERESA M. WALKER

AP Sports Writer

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- A judge dismissed two charges by Riddick Bowe on Thursday, but will consider the former heavyweight champion's argument that Tennessee boxing officials acted arbitrarily and capriciously in denying him a license to fight.

After nearly four hours, Davidson County judge Ellen Hobbs Lyle said the fact that the state denied Bowe's application one day after he submitted his application deserved more testimony. The state answered with one witness, the assistant commissioner who denied the license, then rested.

Closing arguments will be on Friday, but Lyle's ruling had Bowe optimistic he would be licensed.

"I expect a knockout," Bowe said.

Attorney Derek Crownover said Lyle's decision not to dismiss their argument that state officials had acted too quickly in denying Bowe's application left their case largely intact.

"I felt like we have succeeded in showing that there's a need for a third party evaluation of Riddick, which is what we've wanted from day one. I think we have good chances tomorrow," Crownover said.

Lyle dismissed Bowe's claims that state officials were biased against him before he applied and tried to make an example of the boxer.

Tennessee licensed Mike Tyson in 2002 when no other state would but has been much tougher with Bowe.

Officials in the state Department of Commerce and Insurance, which oversees the boxing program, obtained a copy of a February 2000 sentencing hearing in which Bowe's attorneys argued for leniency because the fighter was brain damaged from too many punches.

Robert Gowan, the assistant commissioner in charge of regulatory boards, said he had studied the transcript and new medical reports submitted by Bowe's attorney for four months before the fighter applied for a license in October 2004. Gowan's letter denying the application was dated the next day.

Gowan testified he was influenced by the number of doctors, those paid by Bowe and those appearing for the government, who reported in 2000 that Bowe had permanent brain damage.

Bowe took the stand in his own defense on Thursday, and admitted that he agreed with his attorneys' plan in 2000 to work for a more lenient sentence by portraying him as brain damaged because he didn't want to go to jail.