BoxRec

There will be exceptions but if you think back to the early/mid 90's, almost all our top boys retired before they were totally washed up, in contrast to the equivalent yanks.

Benn, Eubank, Lewis, Hamed, Bruno, Hodkinson. Okay a few of these are having out of the ring problems but none fought on when fat, shot or slurrring their words.

Compare this to Holyfield, Bowe, Jones Jr, Toney, Barkley, Mercer, Norris, Meldrick Taylor, and on and on.

I think part of it is that in the US if you're not earning $ you're a complete nobody. Linked to this is the lack of any proper welfare system.

We probably don't have the entourage culture either, which is likely to tell the 'champ' he still has it, even while he's dribbling into his protein shakes.

I agree generally, though some exceptions I can think of are Randy Turpin, Ken Buchanan and Lloyd Honeyghan... I found it very sad to see Honeyghan being beaten by Adrian Dodson at the end of his career and his fight with Vinnie Pazienza was also painful to watch...

Jim Watt and Barry McGuigan timed it to perfection (maybe McGuigan could have gone one a little bit longer... but if his ticker wasn't in it, then it wasn't in it).

Honeyghun was one of these fighters, like Turpin, who became shot at a young age. He should have retired after Pazienza. He was on a decent run before that (winning the Commonwealth title) but after that any world title aspirations were gone. Dodson was sad.

Michael Ayers vs Jon Honney was one of the saddest sights I have ever seen... it was even worse than Ali vs Holmes.

You know what, that was one of the earliest fights I reported on, and I have to agree, that was terribly sad to watch.

I sat next to Tony Connolly in fact, and I talked to him about how much I'd loved the first Ayers v Rigby fight, and in fact that it was my favourite fight.

I can remember the two of us sitting there shaking our heads and sighing, it was so sad to see a fighter who had given so much in his career, and clearly had absolutely nothing left at all. His balance was gone, he couldn't even time a punch, and I doubt if he landed a single proper shot the whole fight. Only his heart kept him in the ring, very painful to see, and I felt so sorry for Michael that night.

I think a lot of that's got to do with the likes of allegedly. Say what you will about Warren not being able to secure big fights and brining on his fighters at a slow pace, but you don't see many big names fighting under the Sports Network banner and retiring broke.

Not only that, but I never hear a word about Warren ripping off fighters, diddling them out of money or playing smarty-pants with contractual law to sqeze extra cash out of a fighter -- things that have almost become routine when talking of Arum and King.

I think one of the reasons Eubank, Benn et al retired at the right time was their financial situation, and their handlers have to take credit for that.