After the final bell...

One of the things that really winds me up about boxing is the way fighters are discarded and often forgotten by the boxing establishment and even the fans when their career is over.

I know fighters are not exactly renowned for helping themselves (sportsmen in general tend to have a hard time once the final curtain falls - Gazza is the most recent example).

I just feel more should be done to protect and prepare these guys for a life after the ring. I remember the setting up of the boxers union - i think Barry McGuigan and Colin McMillan were heavily involved - but have not heard anything about that for a while.

I really think that we as fans have a part to play in this and wonder if there is any kind of campaign to secure this type of service that fans could lend their support too ?

I tried a few months ago to find out where Kirkland Laing was - what a naturally gifted and exciting fighter he was - A taxi driver got back to me and said that he is in a bad way basically spending his time buying cheap booze from a local off-license and living more or les as a tramp. I'm ashamed as a fan who got so much enjoyment from Laings fights that he has ended up that way and really wish there was something I could do to help him and other ex fighters in the same situation....


Any bright ideas fellas ???

Both Barry and Colin worked there Bollocks off to get it going. I was there at the first meeting and thought it would take of but Boxers being the animal they are didnt seem to respond shame. I think they are trying a different format we shall see.

Almost no one in life is remembered after they have outlived there usefulness. :(

Sad but true. That is why suicide at a good age is proper. Hunter S. Thompson style.

Shamrock I hear you and I commend your concern.

The fact is that the boxers themselves are largely to blame. Far from condemning them, I am just stating a sad fact. I feel if managers took care of the fighter during the course of their career we would see less fighters ending in situiations like, Laing, Spinks and Tyson etc.

If I wee to come up with one idea I woiuld advise the alphabet bodies to employ a purseretention scheme, where they withold a set percentage of the fighters purse until the fighters retirement. It's a workable scheme but would require a great amount of administration.

I don't see the alphabelt's particularly concerned with a fighters well being.

At some point I think you have to give people free reigns over there own finances? I mean if they would carefully just invest a small fraction of the moeny they would be set.

The problem, I would think, is that they get to living beyond there means......because they fail to see how short a boxers career really is.

Purse retention would go some way to at least making sure they have some financial fall back if they need it.

boozeboxer is spot on thought that the alphabet boys would show little if any interest in this kind of scheme. The BBBC (in Britain) may be able to work something out but I honestly believe something like the Proffesional Boxers Association would have the fighters best interests at heart and would like to see them involved in it's set up.

I had considered that. The alphabet bodies, would be a poor administrator given their history of poor decisions and greedy nature. However, I was referring to the Authorities such as state commisions and national bodies like the British Boxing Board of Contraol to make this their business.