While one is now retired and the other is still an active fighter, they both are acting as an example of how the modern-day top pro boxer is, well, not just a prize-fighter any more.
Fighters managing or promoting their own careers is nothing new but if history shows anything, it doesn’t work out more often than not.
Unless it’s near the end of a fighter’s career and he’s so well established that he can finish up his last one or two fights on his own terms off the back of a successful professional tenure.
But last year showed a sign that more and more active boxers are becoming managers of other fighters, adding another income source during their already short careers.
Anthony Joshua has done so with a boxer in the UK whom he currently manages and Andre Ward last year formed a management group that guides the career of newly turned Olympic medallist from the US – Shakur Stevenson.
It seems like very positive news for boxing in my opinion.
More experienced fighters are better placed to advise younger fighters on the pitfalls of boxing and the things to watch out for that can ruin a career outside the ring – before it even gets started inside of it.
Perhaps it’s a sign of the times in the post Floyd Mayweather era we’re now in.
An era where boxers are not just boxers any more – but also more sensible businessmen than ever before.
Passing on their knowledge of outside the ring affairs in boxing to the next generation.
