THE SEEMINGLY IMPOSSIBLE HAS HAPPENED - FIRST WORLD BOXING SUMMIT
Lone Campaign By Boxing Action Hits Home
MEMBERS AT THE HISTORICAL WBC. WBO, IBF, WBA SUMMIT MEETING
WBC President Jose Sulaimán, Executive Secretary Mauricio Sulaimán; IBF President Marian W. Muhammad and Larry Hazzard, Sr.; and the World Boxing Association Executive President Gilberto Mendoza Jr. attorneys Gabriel Peñagarícano and Robert J.B. Lenhardt.
For some two years BoxingAction.com has been expressing our fears for the ludicrous situation in professional boxing of having 68 World champions.
After serious thought we decided it would become another BoxingAction.com campaign.
As time passed it became obvious the decline was becoming more acute and in recent months the fears worsened and we intensified our campaign. However it gets very cold when to have to campaign alone and fail to gain support from any other in the media or elsewhere. It is like being in Arctic weather conditions wearing clothing suitable for Spring.
From the start we were advised that to secure a working relationship between the four major sanctioning organisations was a task as impossible as blending oil and water, and we knew this was based upon hard facts.
We did not think for one moment our campaign would be an overnight success and this proved to be correct. We fully realised we were asking for the near impossible but it was the highly successful word CHANGE that won for USA President Barack Obama the race for the presidency of the United States that gave us further inspiration.
When President Obama was first asked to stand for election as the Democratic Party candidate for the presidency of the United States of America the doubts of success must have been Everest high and, in our view, without the imaginative presentation of the word CHANGE his campaign might have been lost in a maze of doubts related to skin colour and other negative issues.
CHANGE became a symbol of what was badly needed after the disastrous Bush administration. This one word gave America the option it so badly wanted. It offered a variation that brought hope from the sweeping tide of deadly blunders by President George Bush and his cohort Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister.
There was no better way to focus attention the malaise that was threatening boxing and the possible cure than to borrow from the President Obama campaign the enormously successful operative word of CHANGE.
Unashamedly we did just that and on the Home Page of BoxingAction.com the banner used by President Obama word appeared regularly.
The accompanying articles that set out the confusion and loss of interest by sports fans due to the absurd situation of having 68 World champions instead of one for each of the 17 weight categories, glaringly exposed the danger to the popularity of boxing without change.
On the 12th of this month the headline on BoxingAction was:
TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGING BUT NOT FOR BOXING - EVEN UK NEWSPAPERS ARE NOW UNDER THREAT
It was then followed by 11 'bullets' detailing changes that were necessary,
In the early hours of this morning we were courteously advised via email , for which we are appreciative, by WBO followed by WBC, the details of what was described as the:
THE FIRST WORLD SUMMIT
It was hosted by the WBC at the Hotel Barceló, Riviera Maya, Mexico.
It detailed that there it was the first of many planned summit Conferences and the initiation of a new era of unity and co-operation for the improvement of the sport of boxing.
The International Boxing Federation recently invited the WBC, WBA, and WBO to a meeting , and the meeting was hosted this week by the World Boxing Council in the convention region of Riveria Maya, near Cancun, Mexico.
In attendance were WBC President Jose Sulaimán, Executive Secretary Mauricio Sulaimán; attorneys Gabriel Peñagarícano and Robert J.B. Lenhardt; the IBF’s President Marian W. Muhammad and Larry Hazzard, Sr.; and the World Boxing Association Executive President Gilberto Mendoza Jr.
The meeting agenda included consideration of many major innovations for world championship boxing, but with special emphasis on uniformity of provisions for safety and anti-doping, the continued improvement and standardization of officials’ performance through formal reviews and combined training seminars, and maximizing opportunities and human equality for all boxers and promoters worldwide.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS INCLUDED FOCUSING ON BUILDING THE MOST AMICABLE RELATIONSHIPS AND THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE SANCTIONING BODIES AND THE BOXING COMMISSIONS OF THE USA AND AROUND THE WORLD, AND WITH ALL ENTITIES ACTIVE IN THE SPORT INCLUDING THE BOXING PROMOTERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA.
WBC President Sulaimán commented, “The WBC, and the other world sanctioning bodies, has always been the leaders in the creation of the rules and regulations that govern boxing. For many decades, we have led the way for uniformity, safety, and the best interests of the sport of boxing.”
“This is the next great step in the evolution of our sport”, agreed IBF President Muhammad. She continued, “The world of boxing has been waiting for true leadership, and in our unity, we have ability to provide and reinforce that leadership.”
WBA President Mendoza had endorsed this message, saying, “My expectation would be to continue with the good and close inter-organization relations for the benefit of boxing.”
“We have strength in unity,” the IBF’s Larry Hazzard enthusiastically summed it up with, “Some people said that the world bodies could never meet and work together. To repeat a famous quote, I say, ‘YES, WE CAN’… WE CAN AND WE WILL .” ~
