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-Photo Credit: Ludo Saenz-
WORLD BOXING
COUNCIL NEWS
November 7, 2008 – Chengdu, People’s Republic of China
The World Boxing Council’s 46th annual
convention closed today at the Jinjiang Hotel in Chengdu. 458
attendants were registered at the week-long gathering of the
world boxing community.
WBC President Jose
Sulaiman opened the day by saying, “I believe that we
have had a very successful convention. We have dealt with many
things that are for the good of boxing.”
He went on to thank many of the people who helped make
the week so successful and enjoyable, including:
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The
Convention Host Committee of
Chengdu.
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Three of the
hard working younger generation of the WBC: Secretary General
Gabriel Penagaricano
of Puerto Rico; Executive Secretary
Mauricio Sulaiman of
Mexico;
and Legal Counselor Robert
Lenhardt of the
United States.
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Ratings
committee chairman Frank
Quill of
Australia.
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The WBC staff
from
Mexico City:
President’s Assistant Teresa
Flores; Director of Communications and Statistics
Victor Cota;
Director of Press and Protocol
Federico Enriquez;
and Ratings Luis Medina.
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The news
media in attendance: James
Blears of Reuters;
Jose Luis Camarillo
of Esto; Sergio Abarca
of Notimex; Bob Newman
of Fightnews.com; Ludo Saenz
of Notifight.com; Dr. Allan
Recto of Philboxing.com;
Salvador Rodriguez
of Record; Diego Martinez
of Reforma; Leopoldo
Gonzalez of Box Latino; and photographers
Sumio Yamada and
Carlos Baeza.
During a recess of the assembly, President Sulaiman
was interviewed at length by the Central China Television
Corporation.
Dr. Paul Wallace,
Chairman of the Medical Advisory Board, addressed the attendants
and talked about several vital medical items. He also described
the WBC’s Second World Medical Congress, which was held in Cancun
last year and had 300 doctors in attendance from 80 countries, as
“Four days of nothing but academic medicine of the highest level
possible. Along with the WBC’s First World Medical Congress, it
was the greatest medical gathering in the history of boxing.”
WBCares co-chairperson
Jill Diamond organized
and led a visit on Thursday to the children in a barrack school
at Dujiangyan in the area near Chengdu that was devastated by the
tragic recent earthquake. WBC super lightweight world champion
Timothy Bradley Jr. of
the United States, WBC bantamweight world champion
Hozumi Hasegawa of
Japan, and WBC interim super bantamweight world champion
Toshiaki Nishioka of
Japan participated in the visit. Jill described it as, “Amazing.
There were about 50 of us. The children were lined up in rows and
they clapped as we entered. They probably have never seen such a
diversified group of people in their lives - they were so
excited! We presented them with a WBC championship belt, and then
I had all the WBC people take handfuls of little boxing gloves,
donated by Reyes, and hand them out among the children. We signed
T-shirts and notebooks. Tim and the two Japanese champions gave a
little boxing demonstration and we kept pulling kids out of the
crowd to work with them. It was so rewarding. Afterwards, we went
to the earthquake site - devastating.”
Jill told the children at Dujiangyan, “We come here
in all humbleness to offer our support and hopes for your
healing. We represent the World Boxing Council and our president
Jose Sulaiman. We are citizens of many countries who stand in awe
of your courage and bravery in the face of a disaster of untold
proportions. Our families embrace your families. Our prayers join
your prayers. And our hearts, though saddened by your tragedy,
are inspired by your ability to face the future despite the pain
of the past. This belt we present you is that of a champion. You
are our champions. Not because of what you lost, but because you
did it without surrender and fought on beyond the final bell. We
thank you for the privilege of being with you.”
Today, Jill told the assembly, “I couldn’t put into
words what we felt and how we were treated there. It was a
beautiful experience. We thank
Alberto Reyes for
donating all the gloves for the children, and Timothy and the
young champions for giving boxing lessons to the children. I
think everyone here, in their hearts, takes away a beautiful
experience with them knowing how we, individually, can make a
difference. They, in return, presented to the World Boxing
Council this beautiful scroll that I would like to present to
you, President Sulaiman, and the World Boxing Council.”
Regarding the recent news from the convention
involving WBC lightweight world champion
Manny Pacquiao,
President Sulaiman said, “I would like to read a press release
that has been prepared because there have been many recent
attacks on the WBC for requiring
Manny Pacquiao to pay
his sanction fee within 15 days, and also to ask him to pay what
he should if he wants to use the WBC’s title. The release reads
as follows: ‘The World Boxing Council would like to make a
clarification of the position taken unanimously by the Board of
Governors and the general assembly during its 46th
annual world convention held in Chengdu, China.
“ ‘First of all, the WBC would like to express its
profound respect and admiration to
Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo,
the president of the great country, also to the great people of
the Philippines, nation that founded the WBC in 1963.
“ ‘The whole World Boxing Council considered an
embarrassment and humiliation, as well as an act of disrespect by
Mr. Mike Koncz, who
with his communications ill-advising the great champion of the
world by disrespecting the organization that opened the doors to
opportunities for him to show his greatness.
“ ‘First, the WBC has a rule that all champions and
challengers must pay a three percent sanction fee to the
organization. They humiliated the WBC by questioning the pending
$30,000 in his fight against
Juan Manuel Marquez, which he himself promised to pay
months ago, and didn’t pay. But now Mr. Koncz is informing that
he has to talk with the promoter to see if they are paying or not
such debt to the WBC.
“ ‘Second, they requested permission to fight
Oscar De La Hoya with
the WBC approval. In this fight, we estimate that he might make
more than $10 million, at least, and he offered to pay the WBC
only $20,000, like if we, the WBC, were beggars. The WBC rules
are very clear regarding WBC champions fighting without defending
his title.
“ ‘Third, after the De La Hoya fight without
defending his title, he requested the WBC for one other
permission to fight Ricky
Hatton or Floyd
Mayweather – let me clarify: not Manny Pacquiao, but
his representative, Mr. Koncz - which means the WBC must freeze
the WBC lightweight title for much more than a year, taking away
all opportunities to all fighters who are fighting every day to
win and fight for the title, to find that there is a barrier and
they cannot fight because their champion is not available.
“ ‘Therefore, by a unanimous voting of the delegates
of the 164 nations present in Chengdu, China, we are granting the
representatives of champion Manny Pacquiao 15 days to pay such
$30,000 from his fight against Marquez that they promised before
his fight that took place against Diaz.
“ ‘In regards with his fight against Oscar De La
Hoya, instead of the 1.5 percent that he must pay, which is half
of the three percent stated in the rules, he must pay $100,000,
which is much less, as a sanction fee if he wants to keep the
title of the WBC.
“ ‘The WBC has nothing against boxers, as we have a
pension plan to help with food and medicine for many ex-boxers in
the the world. The WBC is only working for the safety of boxers,
and not one single member officer of the WBC gets any
compensation from the WBC or boxing whatsoever.
“ ‘We love Manny Pacquiao. He is our superstar. He is
the pride of the WBC and he represents one of the most beloved
countries in the world in the WBC, such as the great Philippines,
but Mr. Pacquiao is very ill-advised and they are hurting his
image and the people that helped open doors for him, without any
knowledge of what is fair or what is not and those people
advising Manny are not only not doing their right job, but they
are hurting his image for what is the truth and with the
intention to destroy the image of the WBC, as if we were beggars
and belt merchants.
“ ‘We will always love Manny Pacquiao whether he
stays or not, but we ask him to give consideration to the
institution that opened the doors for his greatness.’ That’s the
end of the press release.”
In his closing statement, President Sulaiman said,
“We come to the end of the congress. Many, many years ago, when I
started in boxing, I never imagined that someday I would be
involved with a group of people all over the world that have
become, through the years, my family. I have met in my life many
people, those that have gone ahead of us, many who are not with
the WBC any more, many that I have met, but who I will never
forget ever in my life.
“I have heard many of your words, and I assure you
that I wanted to step down from boxing and try to find a new way,
that God may give you, for the rest of my life. I wanted a
change. I wanted to relax, to devote time to taking pictures and
all that. But when the time came for the convention, I realized
that we are a very solid group of people that needs to continue
being united, and it would be my obligation to try to find a
replacement – there are many, many good candidates – and I would
work very hard in that. But now that my son, Mauricio, spoke
about my life – really, I have not given my family the time that
my family deserves. I have not given my friends the time that
they deserve, and I have not given myself the time that I want.
“But boxing has been my life. Every drop of my blood
is boxing. Every time that I am in my room – it’s a room whose
roof is round; I don’t like flat because that looks to me like a
jail. Round looks to me like the sky, and I like to live in the
sky. I dream. The older I get, the more dreams that I have. Many
times I’ve been in that room by myself; many times I’ve suffered.
Many, many, many problems of my people – my beloved people in
boxing in the world - many times, believe me, I have cried. I
don’t like to cry, but tears made me come back stronger. Tears
let what I don’t want out, and I come out of it stronger. I never
surrender. I never say that I will not get what I want, and
that’s a spirit that I’ve been trying to transfer to all of you.
That’s what has made my life. But you have joined me in the
moments when I have needed you most, and I promise that I will
continue doing my very best so that I’m worthy of your confidence
and your trust.
“But I have also made a commitment to myself. There
are many things in the world that are bad. There is much
discrimination. There is much abuse by the wealthy against those
that don’t have. There’s much abuse in boxing by the television
companies that have the money and the power. There are so many
things that we have to do, and I’m going to fight, for the first
time in my life. I’m going to fight the unfair television
companies, regardless of their power and their money. I’m going
to come fighting as strongly as I can until the last moment of my
life. If I have a problem, I will close my door, cry a little
bit, smile, get it off my chest and continue my life and the life
of the WBC. And I’m sure that you will join me in that.
“I hope that from now on we take a new mental
attitude to boxing and the WBC. We cannot be living by ourselves.
We have to commit more and more of ourselves to what we have to
do. We have to feel that we are are part of something that is
important, and not continue living only on our own.
“It’s very difficult for me to see the way that
boxing is going. It is going very bad. I know, because last night
at midnight, I received a call from an American blasting me, as
you cannot even imagine, because of the voting of the WBC to have
Klitschko fight Gomez. And I’m asking, is it worth it for us to
fight so much for the people that do not understand you? That
don’t care to hurt you when you’ve done so much for them?
Vitali Klitschko would
have never fought for the title again without the WBC. He came to
this convention and said that he was grateful to the WBC because
we followed the rules. And his representative called me last
night to call me a bastard.
“I’m just mentioning this case because that’s my
life. My life is trying to give. I don’t care if I receive - I
have never cared. When you have a friendship, you must live to
serve, not to be served. You must live to make other people
happy, not to make yourself happy. You must live to do your
best, to leave a mark of your passing through life - not in your
time, but after your time. You must be a person that is
responsible, someone that lives for others. If we do not receive
any compensation, affection, business or whatever, it should not
be a problem. We don’t want love. What we like: people who join
our objectives, our dreams. We want, for the times of our lives,
to leave everything for the people that will follow us in our
future.
“And this is the four years that I am asking all of
you to join me, stronger than ever, because we have many thing to
do. And we will do it. We will make it. We will not step aside.
We will not go down. We will not surrender. But I cannot do it
myself, I cannot. I need all of you to be responsible for the
things that we are going to do, and that I will let you know
within the following three months.
“And I hope that you understand that I am a human
being. I have my heart, I have my mind. In boxing, I have always
tried to use my poker face so I cannot transpire, through my
face, my feelings. When I see a boxing match, nobody will see me
blink. Nobody will see me smile when the boxer that I love is
winning. Nobody will see me suffer when he is losing. That’s the
position that the presidency of the WBC has forced me to take.
But I am a human being. I love my friends. I like to feel warmth
and care and concern, because I have it for all. And when someone
comes and gives that to me, that gives me a way to live. I need
you very, very much. Please, don’t get away from me. Be close to
me.
“The end is closer than yesterday, and I want to be
very happy in the years that life can give me. But I think that,
at my funeral, you will hear my punches in the casket, and you
will hear me speaking long and long and long, and not letting
anybody else. And when I let anybody talk, I tell you – two
minutes, no more!
“We want to be able to live a happy life. Let’s not
fight each other anymore in boxing. Let’s go to the promoters and
make them friends. I’ve had several meetings at this convention
with people that one day later have said, “I’m going to kill
you.’ They shook hands. Let’s try to keep them shaking hands, not
go back again to say that they want to kill each other. Let’s
live a nice life.
“And I’m sure that in four years – I don’t know where
the convention will be – but in four years, we will have a
stronger WBC. We will dominate boxing as we are doing it today.
We will be the most respected organization in the world. We will
have people that deserve a bite of food - with a bite of food. We
will not allow boxers that should not box to go in the ring. We
will not allow anybody to be killed because we’re careless. We
will not allow the powers of the American television to come and
step on us. We will not allow what is wrong in what should be
right. And if all of us think the same way that I do, if you join
me in my objectives and my dreams, I am sure that we will be –
all of us – very happy.
“I ask you to bury the past. Bury everything that is
bad. We have had many, many things that we have suffered. I hope
that we enjoy the fight tonight, that the fight card is very,
very good for the good of China.
“You cannot imagine the change that I have suffered
in my life. When we went yesterday to this beautiful old town,
and we saw all of the people in the town waiting for the WBC, I
got scared to see so many serious faces. The mystery, beautiful
mystery – because that’s China: beautiful mystery – I said, ‘What
am I going to do?’ So what I did was raise my hand and smile.
What did I get back? Everybody smiling and everybody raising
their hand. That gave me the notice that we don’t know what we
are talking about when we are talking about the people of the
world. We talk of China as being a mystery, a mystery in a
different manner. But China is a mystery – a beautiful country of
people with tremendous sensitivity and a deep, deep heart.
“When they all showed yesterday to give the WBC a
welcoming that I will never forget, it was a great day for me.
Thank you so much for coming. I love you all. Every time that I
see every face, it brings me the feeling of empathy and love. And
I see another one – the same. And I see another one - the same.
“I can only find the words of gratitude for what all
of you do for the WBC and myself. Thank you very much. Thank you
for your closeness.”
11-07-2008
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