Eight-division champion Manny Pacquiao promised one of Philippine boxing’s most well-loved fighters a heftier monthly pension from the city government of General Santos.
Former World Boxing Council super-featherweight champion Rolando Navarrete, dubbed as the Bad Boy from Dadiangas, receives a monthly assistance from the city but Pacquiao feels it is simply not enough.
These days, Navarrete does part-time work at the fishport and earns peanuts.
“I told him that he is going to be receiving more,” Pacquiao said on Saturday at the Okada Manila where he is hosting WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman as a special guest of the first Pacquiao-Elorde Boxing Awards taking place Sunday night.
Navarrete retired in 1991 after losing to William Magahin by knockout.
By the time he called it quits, Navarrete, now 67, had amassed a record of 56-15-3 with 33 knockouts.
He won the WBC 130-lb crown by knocking out Cornelius Boza-Edwards of Uganda in the fifth round in August 1981 in Viareggio, Italy.
After halting Korean Choi Chung-il in the 11th round at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex five months later, Navarrete was stopped by the iron-chinned Mexican Rafael ‘Bazook’ Limon in the 13th round in Las Vegas.
