Bowie Adams
Name: Bowie Adams
Alias: Brown
Hometown: Eustis, Florida, USA
Height: 196cm
Pro Boxer: Record
Career Review
Ronald "Bowie" Adams was born in Galesburg, Illinois in 1940. As a young teenager, he had a job with the Phoenix Gazette and was lucky enough to have Bill "Wallace" Thompson as his district manager. Thompson thought that Bowie would be a fine boxer, so he taught him and encouraged him; becoming his mentor, coach, and boxing manager. He started his amateur career in 1960. He went undefeated in 13 bouts, scoring 10 knockouts to win the Arizona Golden Gloves heavyweight title. He was also a high school wrestler and football player at Phoenix Union High School and played tackle for Phoenix College.
In the early 1960s, Bowie worked as "Gerald's Monster" on a popular Arizona television children's show. In 1963, when he was appearing as Gerald's monster at Legend City. A crowd of several thousand fans chased him through the park and pummeled him until police intervened.
Adams turned professional and was a promising heavyweight prospect in the early 1960s. At 6 feet 6 inches and a lean and fit 212lbs., he ran up an undefeated streak of 17-0-1 with 17 knockouts.
Adams was working on the movie Black Zoo - a zoo owner hired his animals out as hit men. Adams recalled his job in a 2005 interview; "One day when I was through doing stunts for Robert Mitchum on the set of Rampage, I stopped to work on the Black Zoo set. We had a 500 pound lion named Zamba. Ordinarily, he was a great lion, but we had worked him all day and into the night. He was really grouchy when I went to get him out of his cage. I had him on a ten foot chain when he took off after my backup man! I was on a large set with about 30 ft. walls. Zamba stopped and faced me because I was jerking on the chain, and yelling for him to stop. I did not even see him move, he was so fast! The next thing I knew Zamba had bitten through my right arm. I was hitting him in the head with my best left hook and it did not even faze him! That did nothing for my morale! The owner came up and fought him off me. Zamba attacked me again and I tipped a large wooden set over on him. Then he attacked again and the owner fought him off with a large stick. Finally, they got me out of there. It was two hours later before they had Zamba back in his cage. A 300 pound electrician had climbed the side of the walls, he was so scared! They took me to an emergency room where they sewed up the wound. Two days later, my arm was swollen bigger than my leg! It took a month of medicine and rest to get rid of the infection."
Adams also worked as an animal trainer; working with tigers, bears, lions, and elephants in movies and television programs. He worked for a number of years on the hit television series Gentle Ben which was filmed at Ivon Tours Studio in North Miami, Florida. He also worked doing stunts for Robert Mitchum and Jack Hawkins on the movie "Rampage". He also got to lead an elephant in a scene with Jackie Gleason in the movie "Papa's Delicate Condition".
His film and t.v. work proved a distraction to his ring career and he lost his unbeaten streak, and lost 4-consecutive bouts.
Adams relocated to South Florida and attempted to re-establish his fistic career. However, he failed to live-up to his earlier promising start. He suffered knockout defeats to Joe "King" Roman and Tiger Brown.
Adams twice fought for the Central Florida Heavyweight Title, but was knocked out both times by champion Solomon McTier.
Towards the end of his career, Adams no longer looked like the fit, All-American, Golden Boy of his early start. His crew-cut was replaced with long hair, his clean shaven face now wore a full beard, and his lean and muscular build was now thick and heavy.
He retired after being unable to win a match in his last 10 bouts. In a recent interview, Adams claimed a professional boxing record of 42-8 (41 Knockouts).