Look I’m not trying to say that boxers do not have to take charge over their own lives or be responsible for their economic staying power but this is not like any other job or for that matter any other sport. Boxers are naive about the workings of all the parasites and sharks who they sign on with. They are not savvy about the fine print when they sell their souls via slave contracts to promoters. Lets not forget that they are the ones sacrificing everything and in short their stupidity of how the system works gets them raped and pillaged. The window of opportunity for most is about a decade. Guys like Moore and Hopkins are anomalies.

On the business side fighters like Leonard and Oscar are even rarer. Not only did they transcend the sport but they were also smart business people. I have no pity for guys like Holyfield who made over 200 million dollars and then squandered it all on 26 bathroom houses and fathered about 25 children from 10 different women while playing the God card.

However on the other hand as a patron of pugilism I am saddened by the memory of Joe Frazier living in a 2 room flat above his dilapidated gym in Philly eating his meals out of a can. There is; in my view something wrong with that given what he sacrificed and I feel a little guilty about these stories at times.