Quote Originally Posted by brucelee
As I have been championing before, fighters should have insurance in case they become invalid or when they decide to retire.

Boxing has so many world champions(title holders) that are suffering from extreme poverty. Take the case of Luisito Espinosa (from the Philippines). After he was defrauded by some organizers, he became virtually bankrupt. What has his boxing organization (WBC) done for him? These boxing organizations are simply forgetting what these boxers had contributed to them.

Boxers should be given retirement benefit for all that they have done. They are killing themselves in this sport to entertain us but it seems that people are not concerned on them after their retirement.
Quote Originally Posted by bikersk
Quote Originally Posted by No Contest
I dont know if this is even inm the ballpark but what about a boxers union? If all the boxers could get on the same page, then we got something to work from...we may have to sit through some boycotts/strikes but hey football did it why cant boxing?
I'd be thinking more along these lines too. Once litigation and blame start to become factors the lawyers get their grubby hands on the money anyway. I would think some form of external body, whether it a boxers 'union' or some other group could be entrusted with funds to assist fighters after injury or retirement. If the various WBABC's & IBF's etc were to be made to put aside a percentage of $$ from the largest fights that occur each year this would put a significant amount of money aside to support injured or retired boxers. If former boxers were to promote something like this I could see it getting somewhere.

In addition it would be most helpful for fighters to have support from promoters and the HBO's of the world to spend time and money looking at what will their fighters do after their career is over. Invest in some education and training for fighters in managing money and in other vocations so that when retirement comes either enforced due to illness or injury or by choice there is something to look forward to. There wont be too many ODLH's and the vast majority of fighters wont make anywhere near the money he did/does boxing and not all of them can be promoters (It takes a special breed of greed). However I pitty the poor guy trying to teach James Toney accountancy or something ("That don't add up BITCH" - POW) but it's a thought.

CC's For your input