WBC News

Let me start this Hook with my thoughts on myself, as I want to clarify my way of being.

I live today as if I was to die tomorrow. With the intensity of my youth. With passion. With pride and dignity against those who try to step on our principles, personal, and those of boxing, from where the poorest athletes come and who have not had opportunities for an education. They jump into the volcanic world of boxing with their fists and valiant hearts. They do not know, however, how to defend themselves in the life of this sport, where they will find much exploitation. Their defense, as limited as it might be, has been my commitment and obligation. After about four decades of being the president of the WBC and after my newest reelection, I am still looking for what has to be done, to do it.

The mystery of life is interesting and nostalgic. As a kid, I remember and have never forgotten to have read in a paper, “A 45 year old man found dead in a car accident.” A 45 year old man!! And to think that last week, an almost 42 year old Shane Mosley gave an exhibition of speed and accuracy in a win over a tough Pablo Cano. In 1947, a 45 year old man was an old man. Today in 2013, a 42 year old man is a boxing champion. This gives me the feeling of the immensity of time. It flies faster than the wind. Still, we have to live with creative intensity to leave a mark of yourself and of our generation, even when at the coming of time it will go into oblivion.

Our passing through boxing has been one of reform, as everything in life. However, in 1975 we found our sport as still in the 19th Century in safety matters. Before, our stoves were of stone and wood. Today they are microwaves. Boxing yesteryear was savage. Fans in Mexico used to shout, “more blood, more blood.” Today who does it is a savage. So we saw in Poland a promotion by a business man, and a boxing commission allowing it, presenting Oliver McCall against a young Polish boxer, when McCall was medically suspended by ABC, so reported by the WBC, with the EBU asking the commission not to allow it. It is not possible that we continue allowing those irresponsible promotional acts, as if we were still living at the times of the cavemen.

This is, unfortunately, what still is happening in the world of boxing. Serious disrespect for safety forced the WBC to suspend the country of Indonesia, where constant fatal accidents in the ring happen. All of the countries of the OPBF and ABCO have absolutely respected it. The WBC has a quarter century of medical research with countless positive findings, but we have still boxing commissions which do not follow the implemented safety measures. That is a criminal shadow that a very few irresponsible people put on the whole sport of boxing.

One other irresponsible blow against safety is being taken by AIBA, without thorough world-wide medical research being done. The taking off of the head guards of amateur boxers might be very dangerous. An intense research should have been done for that before taking that irresponsible step.

With all due respect to the chairman of their medical committee, it is a very important and delicate step. There will be many head butts. There will be many cuts on the eyebrows of boxers and other parts of the face, and even on the top of the head.

With the boxers having to box three, four, or five times in 15 days, I wonder how will they deal with it. Will doctors allow boxers with a cut, as small as they might be, still go into the ring?

Mr. Wu’s rush to go into similarities to professional boxing only for the assumed more attraction – money-money again – for TV made him take that irresponsible step. The boxing shirts are also off. That is the problem with people who know nothing or little about boxing.

Among many others, the reason explained above, and the monopoly to be established with the apparent support of Mr. Jacques Rogge, President of the IOC, of having pro boxers only of their AIBA, but absolutely no other boxer from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the poor countries of Europe, as well as of the whole wide world, as well as trying to take all promoters of the industry out, are the reasons why the WBC is strongly opposing to their taking boxing into their hands as if they were the owners.

The IOC might be a private committee, but it was created for the world since more than 500 years before Christ, and not only for those that lead it today. If many people, boxers, nations, or commissions do not want to speak, if they are afraid of possible consequences, if they prefer what is today, but not of what will be tomorrow, the WBC will not. We will go into the ring and stay there until the time that justice and human equality is complied with.

Thank you for reading my thoughts.