If you were to re-write the sci-fi film Cocoon as a horror, you might get close to what we today see in boxing when it comes to retired fighters.
Tempted by regenerating waters, they hear the promises, they smell the money, and they come shuffling out of the retirement home towards the pool. It is then, as they lower themselves into it and start to swim, that they realise all the pool contains is chlorine and all that happens is their skin starts to shrivel up and they find it increasingly difficult to catch their breath during front crawl.
To make matters worse, a much younger swimmer in one of the fast lanes soon takes great pleasure in overtaking them and reminding them of their age. Then, just as they start to tread water and struggle to stay afloat, one of these young swimmers grabs the head of the older swimmer and pushes it beneath the water until everything goes dark and, as promised, they are no longer old.
This, in boxing, is a familiar tale. Every year, in fact, we will witness a young boxer fight and inevitably beat a faded champion in order to signal the changing of the guard. Out with the old, and in with the new, it is as much a part of a former champion’s journey as a prospect’s journey and it is therefore easy to stomach and make peace with it.
However, as if that’s now boring, we have recently seen new spins on this tradition and new ways to exploit the elderly. We have, for instance, seen neophytes like Jake Paul beckon Mike Tyson, at 58, out of retirement for eight lucrative rounds of fun on Netflix. We have also seen Shane Mosley (53) lose to some guy called Matt “The Jedi” Floyd, Manny Pacquiao (46) box for another world title, and Oliver McCall (60) keep going and going at the Texas Troubadour.
These are all efforts to defy the ageing process and some will naturally make more sense than others. The problem is, because fighters can go on longer now than before there is a sudden drive on the part of young, active fighters to capitalise on this fear of ageing and abuse it. Case in point: last weekend Claressa Shields reiterated her interest in fighting Laila Ali, daughter of “The Greatest”, and the world just shrugged. We accepted it; expected it. We know that even if the fight appeals more to Shields than anyone else, that won’t stop the people involved trying to make it happen. After all, they know what works in 2025. They know that age is but a number and that names – big names – are the things that really count.
As a result, there are now many big names out there willing to ignore the limitations placed on them by their age and instead dream of waters capable of making them younger. They see not ruthless promoters but Antareans. They think of themselves as aliens, not humans. They see their life as a film, one with a happy ending.
Laila Ali
Age: 47
Reason for return: Laila Ali, daughter of the GOAT, and the GWOAT before women’s boxing got good and there were all these other GWOATs, hasn’t boxed since February 2007. She is also undefeated, winning all 24 of her pro fights, and the holder of many belts, most of them at super middleweight.
Because Ali never lost, and because of her surname, there will forever be an interest in her returning to the ring, especially with women’s boxing now thriving and looking altogether different than it did back in her day. Now she has someone like Claressa Shields seeing the value in a fight against her and reportedly offering her $15 million to make it happen. That is the kind of figure Ali said she would need to hear to even entertain a comeback and Shields, in supposedly offering it, may well have called her bluff. For Shields, of course, the Ali fight would represent the one thing she has lacked of late: a compelling match against a big name capable of attracting a mainstream audience.
Interest in seeing it: 1/10
Shannon Briggs
Age: 53
Reason for return: Shannon Briggs already did the comeback thing between 2014 and 2016, which is when he went around yelling “Let’s go, Champ!” and hoped that personality alone would get him a money-spinning fight. He chased Wladimir Klitschko at one stage, then settled for David Haye. Neither ended up sharing a ring with him, however, and Briggs therefore watched his career fizzle out under a cloud of performance-enhancing drugs controversy.
Now, almost 10 years later, there is talk of Briggs again coming back, inspired, it seems, by the activity of Oliver McCall, his fellow American. McCall has been busy fighting on Country Box shows (“Where Music Meets Boxing”) in Nashville and Briggs has apparently expressed an interest in doing the same to build himself back up. His goal beyond that, according to reports, is a fight against Deontay Wilder, the former WBC heavyweight champion. Let’s go (home), Champ.
Interest in seeing it: 0/10
Chris Eubank
Age: 58
Reason for return: Given the recent traumas and issues Eubank has faced, very little of what he says or does should be taken seriously and this includes any talk of a return to the ring. That is something he has floated a few times of late, rather worryingly, though nobody expects the threat – and that’s precisely what it is – to amount to anything. In fact, Eubank remains forever interested in attention and knows that talk of a comeback will always guarantee that. What is more, he seems only to talk of a comeback when upset by the behaviour of his son, Chris Junior, and feels that doing something ridiculous – meaning, a return to boxing – might be his one way of getting through to him. Theirs is, alas, a complicated relationship.
Interest in seeing it: 0/10
Carl Froch
Age: 48
Reason for return: Not only did Carl Froch end his career on the perfect note – knocking out George Groves with a right hand in front of 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium – he also invested his money wisely to ensure the temptation to return would not be so great once he settled into retirement. That said, money isn’t the only thing that drags a retired fighter back to the ring. There is also the need for attention, publicity, and worship, all of which leave a fighter the second they hang up the gloves and try to remember how to act like a civilian content with new-found insignificance.
In the case of Froch, it would be wrong to say he has struggled with this, for he has managed to stay retired for over a decade, but there are signs nonetheless that he still wants to be involved in the sport. There have, for example, been punditry gigs and a fairly successful podcast to boot. There has also been an ongoing “feud” with Jake Paul, whom Froch derides whenever he gets the opportunity and would clearly like to fight. He would like to fight him, one, because he sees it as an easy fight, and two, because Froch has a nose for a pound note and knows that being attached to Jake Paul in a business capacity will do wonders for his profile.
Interest in seeing it: 3/10
Tyson Fury
Age: 36
Reason for return: If we pretend for one moment that Tyson Fury is actually being serious this time and is properly retired, of all the potential comebacks we might see this year, it is his that makes the most sense. For one, he is still only 36 years of age and has shown few signs of wear and tear. Two, he is still a huge name in the sport and stands to make a lot of money – more money – by announcing a “return” to the ring less than a year after he said he was walking away for good. Even if talk of a third fight against Oleksandr Usyk smacks of desperation, there is no doubt that Fury remains a powerful player at heavyweight and is still one of the only boxers left who is able to call the shots.
Interest in seeing it: 6/10
Ricky Hatton
Age: 46
Reason for return: Ricky Hatton’s issues with letting go have been well-documented and are not uncommon. He has had his struggles, as they all have, and he has had comebacks, too. In 2012, he returned to the ring to fight Vyacheslav Senchenko only to discover it had been a mistake once the fight got underway, punches started to land, and everything started to hurt. He then supported his son, Campbell, on his own professional journey, which for a while helped to distract Ricky, divert his focus elsewhere, and remind him of both his age and his responsibilities.
Now, though, things have changed again. Now Campbell has retired, at the age of just 24, and Ricky, his father, is getting back in the saddle. In fact, it was around the same time that his son realised the sport wasn’t for him that Ricky, at 46, announced a fight in the United Arab Emirates against Eisa Al Dah on December 2. It made for the strangest example of torch-passing in recent memory.
Interest in seeing it: 0/10
Wladimir Klitschko
Age: 49
Reason for return: Although Carl Froch and Andre Ward both left the sport to the sounds of a victory march, it could be argued that Wladimir Klitschko’s exit was even more perfect than theirs. After all, despite losing against Anthony Joshua in his final fight, Klitschko kind of got everything he needed that night at Wembley Stadium in 2017. He got the adulation of the fans for the spirited nature of his losing effort and he also got a reminder from the boxing gods that his time had passed and that there were younger, fresher heavyweights coming through, each of them eager to usher him towards the exit.
That, for a fighter half in and half out, is exactly what they need – if not want – as their career stutters towards the finish line. The problem for Klitschko, of course, is that he is a heavyweight and heavyweights are known to (a) go on longer than anyone else and (b) always make money if they carry a big enough name. With Klitschko, the temptation to return is now only increased by the growing influence of Saudi Arabia and the blank cheques they can throw in the direction of big names, particularly heavyweights. It’s why we have seen the Ukrainian waver a little bit in recent times and why rumours of a comeback refuse to go away.
Interest in seeing it: 1/10
Ricardo Mayorga
Age: 51
Reason for return: In May, some six years after his last pro fight, former two-weight world champion Ricardo Mayorga competed in an exhibition bout against Luis “Yori Boy” Campas in Nicaragua. It was a six-round bout, which Mayorga won, and hopefully it represented the end of something rather than the start of something. Because the truth is, Mayorga, at 51, and Campas, at 53, have not lived the lives of athletes and are therefore both older, in fighting terms, than even their ages would suggest. Mayorga, in particular, was notorious for living wildly and fighting recklessly and any proposed comeback in 2025 would be a continuation of this lifestyle rather than something wise or advised.
Interest in seeing it: 0/10
Floyd Mayweather
Age: 48
Reason for return: Happy to do exhibition bouts for bags of money, Floyd Mayweather has reinvented himself as a semi-pro boxer in the last few years and as far as we can tell has no desire to go full-time. In the land of exhibitions, he can call the shots, follow a script, and get away with lots of cash and very little damage.
Yet there will surely always be a pull towards boxing for Mayweather, if only because it is, to him, as natural as breathing. He is also a massive name in the sporting world and presumably arrogant enough to look at someone like Manny Pacquiao, his great rival, and say to himself, “Well, if he’s coming back and fighting for titles, why shouldn’t I?”
Interest in seeing it: 0/10
Andre Ward
Age: 41
Reason for return: If you think Carl Froch completed the game and fled at the right time, Andre Ward did all that and more. He not only beat Froch, you see, and remains the only professional fighter Froch never defeated, he also left the sport in his prime without having ever lost a pro fight. His last fight, in 2017, saw him stop Sergey Kovalev and it wasn’t long after that that he announced his retirement. Only 33 at the time, many had expected Ward to go on for years, so were understandably stunned when he confessed that he had had enough.
Since then, he has managed to somehow stay close to the sport – as a pundit; commentator – yet remain strong enough to deny his natural urges or get too close. That is something with which most retired fighters struggle, and yet Ward, more intelligent than your average, has been able to maintain the balance and his perspective. It is only recently, in fact, that he has teased the idea of a return to the ring and even then one cannot be entirely sure of the motive. Perhaps he meant it. Or perhaps he was just bored and wanted some attention.
“I am hard-wired to compete,” Ward said in an interview with Stephen A. Smith eighteen months ago. “The problem with retirement, and why other guys go to different vices, or depression sets in, is because they lose their identity and don’t redirect that drive. I’ve always been a man on a mission.
“Every now and again that hard-wiring gets active. It’s like I’ve had to retire multiple times. I’ve had to talk myself off the ledge [of coming out of retirement] multiple times. It’s not easy. Retirement is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. It’s been six years and nobody has called my name. There is a reason for that.”
Interest in seeing it: 3/10
