Ex-Boxing Champion Says He’s Penniless

Former junior middleweight champion Maurice Hope has told a bankruptcy court that he is penniless and facing more than $100,800 in debts.

“I have nothing left,” Hope said.

“This is the classic story of rags to riches and back to rags again,” said Paul Craig, the court’s assistant official receiver.

Hope, 35, said he made as much as $160,000 a year at the peak of his career, but in his “foolishness” had failed to save any money of it.

He said he also lost $126,400 financing a household goods company he started with his brother. The company went into voluntary liquidation in 1981 with an estimated debt of $54,400, he said.

Hope won the World Boxing Council junior middleweight title with an eighth-round knockout of Rocky Mattioli in March 1979. He defended the crown three times before losing it to Wilfred Benitez in May 1981.

He lost a 12-round decision to Luigi Minchillo for the European junior middleweight championship in 1982, then was banned from boxing by the British Boxing Board of Control because of a detached retina.

An attempt at a career as a boxing manager failed, Hope told the court.