Boxer Melton Bowen says he once knocked out Miami cannibal

Whether you have the stomach to read the details or not, you surely have heard about the face-eating cannibal who was shot and killed by police over the Memorial Day weekend in Miami.

Now, former heavyweight boxing champ Melton Bowen not only says he once faced down the same man, 31-year-old Rudy Eugene, and had to knock him out when Eugene tried to fight him, but also claims Eugene wasn’t a bad guy.

“I got him before he got me,” says Bowen, 43, who says the two began arguing over music before Eugene ripped off his shirt like he was going to attack him. “He did threaten me though — ‘Oh I’m gonna kill your (expletive)’, you know.”

Bowen, who had a career record of 35-9 and captured the World Boxing Foundation Intercontinental heavyweight title in 1993, says no charges were filed in the 2007 incident and the two settled their differences and got along quite well.

“He wasn’t violent, he was all right,” Bowen says. “But after you get to know him. If you don’t know him, something different. But if you got to know him, he was pretty cool. He was all right.”

What he means to say is he thought he was all right. As we now know, Eugene was not all right.