Wire service AFP has a sad and emotionally touching story on the plight of former Pinoy world boxing champion Rolando Navarette.
It’s mentioned in the graphic story that Navarette scrapes by now on peddling fish on the streets of the Philippines where he sometimes makes $16 a day.
The great fighter who knocked out another great one, Cornelius Boza-Edwards, scrapes by on his meager income and occasional cash infusions from current Pinoy Idol Manny Pacquiao.
Navarette, whose boxing base was Honolulu, blames his poverty on too many high times involving liquor and fast women. A prison stint for rape also did him no favors.
The description of the ex-fighter, now age 52, sleeping in a hovel and barely getting by would be a clich? except that it is all true.
Now let me flip the script a little.
One of the brightest observations Muhammad Ali ever made during his heyday was asking why the public is so shocked when boxing stars without education go from rags to riches and back to rags.
“They don’t say nothing when a rich white guy goes broke or jumps out a window,” Ali said. “Big companies go broke and no one is surprised. But let a boxer, who never went far in school, lose all his money and people are shocked.”
Ali’s point was well taken then and now.
Enron turns out to be a house of phony cards. The Adelphia cable guys, the Rigas family, are exposed as high class crooks and wind up in prison.
Bernie Madoff, who turned investors away deeming them not suitable for his bunco scam, rips off highly educated professionals, doctors, lawyers and others.
There’s a certain societal hypocrisy involved here.
Why is Leon Spinks sweeping floors at a YMCA in Nebraska while his brother Michael lives in a Delaware mansion?
Larry Holmes is well off. So is Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Thomas Hearns has some tax troubles but who doesn’t in this economic climate?
Some fighters have good advisers. Some even take care of their hard earned blood money.
Yesterday’s cheers have a short echo for ex-pugs like Navarette.
Yes, his plight is heart-rending. But it shouldn’t surprise anyone as it is a too familiar script, the glorious champion who fought his way out of poverty, achieved wealth and fame, and then lost his grip on the money.
I prefer to look at the positive aspect, the sunny side of the story.
And that’s Pacquiao giving the old, battered champion a hand out and maybe a hand up.
In a world where major banks and even countries such as Iceland go bust, one impoverished former world boxing champion is not such a big deal to most of us.
I’m not being heartless. I’m being real. Rocky Lockridge, strung out on crack and alcohol, and living in the streets of Camden, NJ., is pathetic for sure.
But, given that boxing offers no guidance to these champions when their pockets are full, is it a shocker, is it a surprise?
Let’s stick to the truth. Fighters get used up, milked for all their worth physically and financially, and then get kicked to the curb.
Pacquiao will never be in Navarette’s shoes.
But, without pensions and without guidance when they have money, I find it more surprising when a former champion is financially comfortable.
Ali was right on the money about ex-fighters having no money.
It’s something to be sad about but it’s not any kind of a surprise.
Let’s stop the hypocrisy and stop with the alligator tears.
