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Futch, affectionately nicknamed "Papa Smurf" by his latest champion, was hospitalized with heart problems earlier this year but seems to have recovered and remains a stabilizing force for Bowe both inside and outside the ring. "I'm going to get me one of these, Papa Smurf," Bowe muses as he settles into a seat on the Caesars Palace jet that is flying him from his training camp in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, to a promotional event in Los Angeles.
It took four years to get Bowe to the point where he could contemplate buying a $10 million plane. Because Newman refused to make an alliance with one of the big-time boxing promoters like Don King or Bob Arum, he had to pay expenses for Bowe's fights out of his own pocket. By the time the Holyfield fight came around, Newman had exhausted his savings, sold his BMW and borrowed from friends to invest more than $300,000 in his fighter. Those days of debt are gone. This month, construction will begin on the $6.6 million house Bowe is building in Fort Washington, Maryland, where he moved 2 1/2 years ago. The ( 32,000-sq.-ft. mansion includes six bedrooms, a 25-seat movie theater, a four- lane bowling alley and a fully equipped gym.
The nouveau-riche excess of the place has not escaped Bowe, who jokingly calls the house "the Riddick Bowe Presidential Estate." But he adds, "I get a kick out of providing my family with the necessities and giving them things they don't need." Requests from his siblings have become so frequent that none now have his home phone number. Still, Bowe bought a $350,000 home for his mother, and supports his sister Brenda's four children and two other nephews whose mother is struggling with a drug problem. About a month after winning the title, he also bought marble tombstones for the unmarked graves of his dead brother and sister. It was, in many ways, a particularly symbolic Bowe gesture -- a practical commemoration of his past and its defeats, and with nothing ridiculous about it.