Mexico joins effort to locate retired boxers owed California pensions
LA TimesHector Lizarraga, 56, a retired featherweight from Mexico who moved to the United States as a teenager, received $39,000 from the California Boxers’ Pension Fund. California is partnering with Mexico to help find professional boxers owed pensions from a little-known state retirement plan, with two dozen former fighters located in recent weeks and pledges to identify more. The efforts follow a Times investigation that found most boxers owed benefits from the California Professional Boxers’ Pension Plan were unaware that the 40-year-old program existed or had little information about how to apply. The California State Athletic Commission, which administers the pension plan, said it estimates that at least a quarter of the 200 boxers currently owed benefits had a last known address in Mexico. “It’s a shame their communication has been so poor,” said retired Bakersfield lightweight Gonzalo Montellano, 65, who first learned from The Times in February that he is owed a $20,000 lump sum boxing pension.
History of this topic
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First MMA fighter retirement fund bill signed into California law by Newsom
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California to step up efforts to find boxers owed pensions following Times report
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California created a pension for boxers but says it struggled to find them. So we did
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California created the nation’s only pension for aging boxers. But it’s failing many of them
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