DaytonDailyNews.com

COVINGTON, Ky. — Standing next to each other Wednesday afternoon, they seemed so dissimilar.

Riddick Bowe is 6-foot-5, Rocky Phillips 5-foot-10. Bowe was raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Phillips in rural southern Ohio.

Bowe was the two-time heavyweight champ of the world. Phillips once was known as one of the toughest guys on Dayton's streets.

Yet come Aug. 3 in Florence, Ky., the two will have everything in common. They're meeting in a 10-round bout that fabled fistic salesman Don Elbaum has dubbed "Bombs Away — The Explosion By the River."

Nevermind Florence isn't on the Ohio River — if you're familiar with the legendary matchmaker, you know he doesn't sweat details.

Like the time he didn't have a trophy for a big bout at Detroit's Olympia Stadium. One reach into the Red Wings trophy case and he was handing out Gordie Howe's MVP trophy.

So Wednesday — as he announced this fight at a Covington press conference — Elbaum tried making it trophy-worthy.

He rightfully called the 42-1-1 Bowe a future hall-of-famer and noted that the heavyweight division has never been "more abhorrent." But then he stretched: "Bowe can be the champ again."

Phillips — who Elbaum called "one of the greatest one-punch knockout artists in boxing" — is Bowe's first test. The Dayton heavyweight, who is 21-14, does pack a punch, but he hasn't really shown it since he knocked out a bloated Michael Dokes in two rounds in 1997. Four years before that Bowe also stopped Dokes.

But in the past decade, both boxers, their lives derailed by brief prison stints, have seen their fight careers decline.

Although the 42-year-old Phillips has fought 10 times since 1998, he said he's lost nine: "My mom and brother died and we lost a baby and I just lost my will to win."

But he said a recent pep talk by his eighth-grade daughter — who said he was disappointing family members "looking down from heaven" — has him recommitted.

As for the 39-year-old Bowe, he retired in 1996 — after his bruising trilogy with Evander Holyfield and two brutal bouts with Andrew Golota — and has fought just twice since.

Now there are plenty of critics who say he should fight no more. When he went on trial for kidnapping his ex-wife and kids, his legal team claimed his actions stemmed from ring brain damage. Later, he claimed that was just a defense ploy and Wednesday he defended himself again:

"A lot of people say the president shouldn't be the president and he's still doing his job. So let me do mine."

Elbaum agreed and said he's taken Bowe to one of the nation's "top neurologists" and now has the clean-bill-of-health paperwork.

Of course, back in 1965 Elbaum also "had" the gloves Sugar Ray Robinson had worn in his very first fight. And since he now was promoting a Robinson bout 25 years later, he wanted to give the legendary boxer those mitts.

Robinson got teary-eyed when Elbaum presented them at a press conference. But when photographers called for him to put them on, Elbaum panicked. He noticed both gloves — which weren't historical, but had simply been fished from his car trunk — were left-handed.

As the unsuspecting media kept clamoring, Elbaum whispered the truth to Robinson, who didn't miss a beat. "I can't," he told the press. "It's just too emotional."

After that, Elbaum should have no trouble making Bowe and Phillips "The Explosion by the River," even in Florence.