WORLD BOXING COUNCIL NEWS

07.10 - MOSCOW - The opening ceremonies for the 41st annual World Boxing Council convention were held Monday morning at the Cosmos Hotel in Moscow. This convention is also he celebration of the WBC's 40th anniversary.

Convention delegates heard welcoming speeches by Mr. Valerie Shantsev, Vice Mayor of Moscow, and Russian-born WBC super lightweight world champion Kostya Tszyu. In attendance were former light heavyweight and heavyweight world champion Michael Spinks, WBC super middleweight world champion Markus Beyer and former WBC flyweight world champion Yuri Arbachakov, the first Russian fighter to ever win a world title.

In excerpts of his yearly report, WBC President Jose Sulaiman said, "The World Boxing Council was founded only 40 years ago in 1963, which is just about half of our generation's age, with the gathering of 11 nations. That was the first professional world boxing convention ever in history. During that time, I was not a founder of the WBC. I was sitting in the bleachers dreaming that someday I would be able to participate in the sport that I love.

"Thus, we are celebrating at this convention in this historical and great city of Moscow our 40th anniversary, now formed with the affiliation of 161 nations, which is exactly 150 more than the 11 of our first convention. It took the gathering of those first boxing idealists to found the WBC and plant the first seed to make boxing grow into what is is today, 40 years later, under the leadership of our beloved World Boxing Council, as one of unquestionable boxing safety where athletes are strongly protected, where rule and order prevail and where sports, social and human principles reign as the WBC's backbone.

"I was elected President for the first time in 1975 in Tunisia, North Africa, when I strongly conditioned my acceptance and showed my dissatisfaction for a past which was limiting the intervention of boxing commissioners only to rate boxers and sanction title bouts. I asked for the commitment of the 29 delegates of that year to dedicate our best efforts and a new mental attitude to adopt medical safety as our priority, to strive for human dignity against the abuse of power and injustice, and for dignity of the sport, rule and order. I found then, and all of you who are here today, who are all boxing lovers who dedicate their lives in their efforts to serve the boxing world, that we have all together accomplished our dreams and changed them into objectives and ideals.

"So, I believe that it would be good for me to give a brief review of of those outstanding things that the WBC has done. Everybody knows that one of the biggest enemies of boxing is brain injuries. Because brain injuries are so difficult for the sport of boxing and has produced so many fatal accidents, the WBC has donated more than one million dollars to UCLA in a medical program of research. I am very happy to inform you that after 18 years of donations, UCLA has reported to us that they have found a protein that they believe in short years will give us a medicine to prevent and even cure brain injuries. This shows us also that we have to be patient. You plant the seed, water it, you take care of the tree and it will grow like it is now starting to do.

"We have seen through our lives that boxers retire and lose everything that they have. Because of that, the WBC has donated more than a million dollars in pension plans, medicine, hospitals, surgeries, taking care of the children, sometimes stopping them from being thrown into the street, sometimes taking a boxer who is having a funeral in the street to give him one with dignity. And that is, to my heart, one of my dearest participations with all of you with the Board of Governors and the WBC. Boxing has to show that we will not forget boxers.

"Recently, there was a fighter in Mexico, Juan Antonio Lopez, who had cancer. He didn't have a penny. The WBC is helping him with some money. We found a laboratory, Novarties Laboratory, that is now giving him all the necessary medicine to fight cancer for the whole year or as long as it takes. And that is what we all have to look for. Who has the human heart to help boxers who don't have the money to cure themselves?

"Many years ago we saw that there was the three-rope ring. The lower rope caused many boxers falling backwards to hit the back of their head, sometimes with fatal accidents like Davey Moore. What did the WBC do? Create the four-rope ring so there would be no drastic falls or fatal accidents.

"When I was elected president, there was no medical participation. The only medical exams that we had at the time were the heart-rate, blood pressure, you open your mouth and God bless you. The WBC could not continue with that, so we brought in a series of medical implementations that have changed dramatically, one-hundred and eighty degrees, the situation in boxing. All of you remember that even five years ago we could read in the papers about 20 or 25 deaths every year. Today, if you read three of four, those are too many. And that is what we have done for the world of boxing. By having all the nations of the world implement all of the medical that we have instituted to have boxing be a sport and not an act of savagery. We are glad to applaud the WBC Medical Board because they have devoted their lives to make the sport that they love a different sport. Our dear heroes are the doctors.

"Fatigue has been identified as the worst enemy of athletes in any sport and especially in boxing. Even against the outroar of the traditionalists, or those who only care for the drama to make more money or TV interests, the WBC opposed totally the continuation of them using boxers for their pleasures. And we decided, with the courage of men, to reduce championship fights from 15 rounds of the past to the 12 rounds of today. I was called a criminal, we suffered through so much that if we were not sure of what we were doing, we would have put back the 15 rounds. But we would not, because all the people who are members of the WBC Board of Governors had the guts to continue what we thought should be done. It is now the most respected rule that I believe has ever been done, according to Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali, who told me so.

"I remember years ago when a dear Mexican champion, Ruben Olivares, could not stand it any more, got up at midnight, took a jar of water and drank it when the following day, he had to weigh-in for a title match. He was four pounds over, and he had to make an inhuman sacrifice to lose the weight. Because of that situation, the WBC has done several things. The first one is to institute intermediate weight divisions because the boxers did not want to move up and give away an advantage to the other. The intermediate weights made the boxers understand that it would not be too difficult if they could gain two kilos, four pounds, without any danger and without giving any advantage to anybody. We then also moved to have the weigh-ins 24 hours before the fight took place and not the six hours of the past. In those six hours, you didn't see a fighter with all his strength and abilities, but only a phantom. If they dehydrate, it becomes a critical condition for a human being to fight. Now fighters have 24 hours to rehydrate, recover in their sleep and they will go the the ring as strong as they can be. We added to that a recent implementation of weigh-ins 30 and seven days before the fight with a ten-percent allowance the first 30 days and five percent allowance in the second thirty days. This has eliminated what we have seen in the past of people losing four, five, six kilos in one week and even three and four in two days.

"In the past, we didn't know if the problems that we had in the ring were with boxers that were doped or not. And doping in boxing is only the stimulants. The stimulants change the minds of the boxers so that they are receiving so much punishment that they are pushing their lives into the line of inhuman endurance. And because of doping, many accidents have happened. In the year of 1976, the WBC implemented a program to examine the urine of boxers after the fight. And in all these years we have only found, for the pride of boxing, 11 cases where we found dope. In 1985 implemented a program for distributing posters and pamphlets to help prevent AIDS, alcohol and drug abuse and a test for hepatitis C.

"Perhaps you will remember in those years that many boxers had retinal detachments. Why? Because the other boxer used the thumb to the eyes of his rival, producing the retinal detachment. So, in 1979, the WBC implemented the thumb-attached glove. Now they cannot use the thumb to hurt anybody. We very seldom see detached retinas today.

"We also remember that in the past, there were many champions who would duck their most meritable challengers. They would fight whoever they wanted to fight. To eliminate that, the WBC brought the mandatory defense every year or so, so no champion can step aside from fighting the most meritable challenger. And I can tell you that this is a rule that has changed completely the world of boxing. Many, many of the fighters today won their titles in mandatory fights.

"Only those born and raised in the most favorable of social levels might never understand of feel the shame and injustice of apartheid as an insult to human dignity. Thos who are fully indifferent to the pains and injustice of our world, or those who directly, indirectly or even naively advocate, support or even allow participation in any way with a system which shamelessly and repulsively ignores the sacred standing of respect for human equality have not and will never have a place in the WBC. This is the organization of unquestionable equality, where democracy, understanding and reciprocity is a must. However, discrimination still exists. It is a page in history which cannot be closed while there is oppression of some races over others in many streets of the world. It seems that it is flourishing rather than perishing. It will continue to be a priority mission to continue our struggle to denounce and act to eliminate discrimination in our sport. This must continue to be a backbone of the WBC.

"All of the matters you've seen, most of the things that I'm talking about are medicine, medicine, medicine. That is the most important thing to me.

"We are now trying to think for the future. I have been meeting with Dr. Paul Wallace and we have come to an understanding that we have to start a webpage exclusively dedicated to all the ring doctors of the world so that in this webpage, we will have the medical files of all the fighters. The website will receive all of the information from any commission in the world that wants to participate. In this matter, any boxing commission can consult the website and if they find if one of the boxers should not be allowed to fight, they will not accept it. Today, so many people that should not fight are travelling to fight, get killed and make peanuts. I think that this will be one of the greatest steps that the WBC can take and I appreciate the participation of Dr. Wallace.

"I believe that are many other missions to establish during this convention in Moscow. The WBC will continue working as strong as ever to be of service to the sport of our love.

"It would take me a much longer time to continue reporting all the benefits and services that the WBC has given during our 40 years of existence. But I believe what I have explained gives all of us an idea of what the WBC has done.

"Unfortunately, we are going through a period of life of greed, envy, jealousy, aggression discrimination and selfishness which is always thrown at all those public institutions and people who devote their lives very hard to reach success, and it happens that success has many enemies. Success is never pardoned.

"In spite of all that you have read, I cannot hide my sadness to see the WBC involved in a legal problem that has brought much dissatisfaction to most of us. The WBC tried to help and support the EBU, a German boxer, a German promoter and a German promotion to receive in response ingratitude from the boxer who sued the WBC and found a court of law in New York who took our case as its jurisdiction even when the basis of the case was only Germany and the organization who has its head office in Mexico. Where is the jurisdiction of the New York court? I'm still waiting to know.

"We have been forced into backruptcy. We have seeked the protection of Chapter 11 and we have done it in the courts in Puerto Rico. We are following strictly the requirements of the court so that we can continue administering the WBC in a manner that our system and procedures do not suffer. We must understand that in order to try to keep the WBC alive, to continue serving with passion the sport of our love, we must accept our responsibility to positively respond, understand and cooperate to the mandates of the court of backruptcy in Puerto Rico.

"We have also had a group of members who are doing an outstanding job and I would like to congratulate our treasurer Juan Sanchez for his restless job in keeping in the strictest ruling of the backrupcty court the finances of the WBC. My congratulations go also to Spider Bynum, in all the corresponding legal matters. I would like to include in my appreciation and recognition Mario Latraverse, our Secretary General, for being an active part of our group in the defense of the WBC. Be assured that the WBC has done nothing wrong. We have not done anything in bad faith.

"This is a matter of ingratitude, the ingratitude that has destroyed and killed brothers, friends, nations, and should someday be eliminated from the face of the earth.

"You have come from from many long distant countries, 24 hours, 28 hours, 20, 18. But you are here. You believe in the WBC. And for that, I thank you from the deepest bottom of my heart. We expected 200 people, but we have 500 here."

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Meetings were held in the afternoon by the African Boxing Union, CIS and Slovenian Boxing Bureau, North American Boxing Federation and Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation. The Caribbean Boxing Federation, South American Boxing Federation and Central American Boxing Federation met jointly. Seminars were held for the ringside physicians and ring officials in attendance.