Fighters who are terrible with their money

[Lance Uppercut]

Two fighters made the Yahoo list of Athletes who are terrible with there money


Evander Holyfield

Four-time boxing champ Evander “The Real Deal” Holyfield reportedly made over $250 million in cash during his boxing career, but despite this he reportedly is flat broke. Holyfield lost all his money by making “smart” business decisions look really foolish. You thought buying a house was a smart move? It normally is, but not when you buy a house the size of Rhode Island. Holyfield bought a $20 million house with over 54,000 square feet and 109 rooms. The house has 11 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, a movie theater, a bowling alley and an Olympic-size swimming pool. Imagine how much it must cost to cut the grass on all 235 acres! You could buy a Range Rover with the electric bill payment alone.

Mike Tyson

The king of them all is boxer Mike Tyson, who squandered a $350 million to $400 million dollar fortune. So what did “Iron” Mike spend his fortune on? Everything. He dropped half a million dollars on a 420-horsepower Bentley Continental SC with lamb’s wool rugs, a phone and a removable glass roof. It is one of only 73 Bentley Continental SCs ever built. The sad part is that’s not even the only Bentley that Tyson owned! He spent over $4.5 million dollars on cars alone. Throw in a $2 million dollar bathtub and $140,000 for two Bengal tigers and you can see why Tyson’s fortune is down for the count. He filed for bankruptcy in 2003

Here is the full article:
Seven costly pro athlete screw-ups - Yahoo! Sports

[Gandalf]

It amazes me how some of these guys screw up the way they do. All it takes is a little common sense to know that you don't need 10 bathrooms and that you should put some of your winnings away for a rainy day. In sports you know you aren't going to retire at 65, so you would think that would be in the back of the mind too. What's a guy like Floyd Mayweather doing getting into financial difficulty? The silly, silly man.

[generalbulldog]

Well that's not surprising. Quite a lot of pro athletes tend to go broke after their playing days are over. 80% of NFL players are flirting with bankruptcy and 60% of NBA players are near there, and these guys get multimillion dollar contracts.

I just love the one on Sprewell where he says he can't feed his family on a 3 year $21 million dollar contract.

[Greig]

Yeah, I think it would be far easier to list fighters who actually invested their money wisely...


Marciano
Leonard
Hagler
Holmes
DLH
Lewis
Buster Douglas - did amazingly well with the 20m he earned from the Holyfield fight.

And you can't imagine tight arse Hopkins ever going broke...

[Kel]

Holyfields house is just bordering on plain stupid. Bigger than the WhiteHouse I read a while back. No wonder he had so many bathrooms you would need to run a marathon to take a piss otherwise.

[miron_lang]

I hate to say it again but. a small piece of their earnings at 5% per annum can yield. $50K per month for life...

[generalbulldog]

Floyd and Pac are going to be on this list someday.

[CFH]

Holyfields house is just bordering on plain stupid. Bigger than the WhiteHouse I read a while back. No wonder he had so many bathrooms you would need to run a marathon to take a piss otherwise.

This came up when I search for pictures of his house on Google:

[jerome01]

Floyd and Pac are going to be on this list someday.

This may happen to Floyd unless he change his lifestyle but could not say it would happen to Pac.

Pac has a smart wife. She already secured the future of her children by putting it on trust fund. If she's smart enough to do that i think she's also smart enough to tuck away a few millions for safe keeping.

[Lance Uppercut]

I've heard many boxing writer predict that Pac-man will be broke when his career is over. Supposedly, he is the worst offender of wasting money. He supports a huge entourage like Ali did.

[Lance Uppercut]

Someone pointed this out in another thread, but at least floyd has already gone broke, so he was lucky enough to learn his lesson while he still is young enough to keep earning money.

[generalbulldog]

I've heard many boxing writer predict that Pac-man will be broke when his career is over. Supposedly, he is the worst offender of wasting money. He supports a huge entourage like Ali did.

I was thinking of the same thing, but then he does live in a 3rd world country where the money he earns will last him longer because of the rate of exchange and the standard of living being considerable cheaper than someone like ALi who lives in America.

TBH thinking about it, most of the athletes I've heard stories of being broke are almost entirely made of American athletes being on there, I'm not saying other nationalities aren't susceptible but American athletes just lead the field. Maybe because of the culture of spending and being in debt.

[Cressa121]

Yeah, I think it would be far easier to list fighters who actually invested their money wisely...


Marciano
Leonard
Hagler
Holmes
DLH
Lewis
Buster Douglas - did amazingly well with the 20m he earned from the Holyfield fight.

And you can't imagine tight arse Hopkins ever going broke...

I'm always happy to hear about the guys that do invest their money wisely. It's always terrible to hear of athletes that earn a huge amount of money then go broke years later, it just doesn't seem possible to blow that amount of money. The only guy i could think to add to that list off the top of my head is Foreman.

[salty trunks]

Its amazing some of these super atheletes that make a 100 plus million could take one fight purse and put it with a financial planner and be set for life with a conservative investment yet they go completely broke.

Its not just atheletes either its a good majority of people. I see it all the time with generally intelligent business people that make great livings yet feel the need to spend everything they make mostly on stuff they dont need or ever use.

[salty trunks]

Someone pointed this out in another thread, but at least floyd has already gone broke, so he was lucky enough to learn his lesson while he still is young enough to keep earning money.

By all indications Floyd has not learned his lesson and will go broke again. The only lesson he learned was that he couldnt earn the type of money to keep up with his foolish spending without boxing.
He still wastes his money on cars gambling traveling entourages and everything else that sucks a guy dry very quickly.
Material items for the most part represent depreciating assets.