Toka Khan Clary shares his hardships over boxing shutdown

The one thing about boxing is once you make it to the top of the sport you can really make a lot of money in a short period of time. Unfortunately that’s only the case for a small handful of fighters, while most others still have to find means to survive between fights. That’s especially the case when there are no fights happening and no purses to bank on.

One such individual is featherweight Toka Khan Clary (27-2, 18 KOs), who shares with ESPN how he’s been coping during this time as he recently lost out on a March 12 fight leaving him a little strapped for cash.

Khan says that his promoter Lou DiBella was kind enough to still pay him a percentage of his purse after his card was scrapped, which helped, but that he’s still figuring out a way for him to continue to take care of his family during this crisis.

“The month is coming to an end. Everybody else is talking about this money that the government is supposed to give us. My rent alone is $1,350. I have to come up with $1,350 every month, and that’s just on my rent. And I’ve gotta come up with a lot of other money just to feed my family. I don’t know what I’m doing yet, I’m just waiting.

“My wife doesn’t work, she stays with my 2-year-old. Can’t afford to put my daughter in daycare yet, because they charge you $200 a week. And if I don’t get another fight in due time, I will definitely have to find another job, most definitely. Not thinking it — I know I’m going to have to.”

Clary is hardly the only fighter to find himself in this predicament at this time as other fighters have publicly come out to lament the amount of money they’ve recently poured into training camps and sparring partners only to have their fights canceled, but that just happens to be the state of the world we’re living in. Hopefully we’ll get back to some sense of normalcy sooner than later.