02.10.05 – The 43rd annual World Boxing Council convention opened this morning at the Iberostar City Hotel in La Linea de la Concepcion, a beautiful city on the southern coast of Spain with spectacular views of Africa across the Strait of Gibralter, and the Rock of Gibralter only blocks away..
Welcoming speeches were given by the mayor of the city, Juan Carlos Juarez Arriola, and the President of the European Boxing Union, Ruben Martinez of Spain, who was also presented with a special award of recognition. The WBC Board of Governors were individually introduced by WBC Secretary General Gabriel Penagaricano of Puerto Rico.
In his annual report, WBC President Jose Sulaiman said, “Today, under the leadership of the WBC and the work of all of you, safety is at its best ever; monopolies are mostly inexistent; opportunities are open without discrimination of race, religion, or nationality. Medical care is our backbone, and countless rules and actions have been taken for the betterment of the sport and the welfare of boxers, most of which have been detailed in my past reports as President.
“Boxing is no more a legalized act of violence, and is today at its highest levels of safety and giving many opportunites to those born in the humblest beds.
“We have encountered and resolved many problems during our almost half a century of life, including going into backruptcy for what we believe was an unfair ruling in a court of law, and there have been moments when I have asked myself if it has been worthy for all of us in the WBC, the so many years of our lives that we have devoted with passion and determination for the sport of our love.
“Boxing is in our blood, our mind, and our heart, and most of us just could not live without it; boxing is our father and our son, the thrill of our lives, and boxers are the greatest heroes of them all. So let bygones be bygones and let’s keep on our armours and, like Don Quixote, keep on fighting the windmills or unfairness, unsafety, and abuse.
“To be able to do it, we must first set the record straight. The World Boxing Council does not claim to be the one and only in professional boxing. We are a private not-for-profit group of boxing commissioners and members who have no financial compensation and who have joined in an officially registered organization that owns its own WBC trademark and the WBC championship accolade, and has its own constitution, rules, and regulations.
“We expect and have always invited all boxers and promoters to compete for our titles but, and I repeat – but – if any or all or them want to compete for our premier championship and famous green and gold belt, they must absolutely abide by our constitution, rules, and regulations, or otherwise just use any other of the many title recognitions that are available today. I am using this president’s report as an official, irreversible declaration of such requisite and principle for the future, if some have not understood in the past.
“Once that is established, we must set new objectives, goals, and ideals to prove a reason for our existence, with safety being our priority.
“Indonesia had suffered five fatal accidents in the ring in the last 18 months, the reason why we reached an agreement with the Indonesian sports authorities to have a seminar for safety for which we appointed Dr. Paul Wallace and Dr. Nasser Cruz, ring officials Mr. Hubert Minn and Mr. Bruce McTavish, and coordinators Mr. Frank Quill and Mr. Chandru Lalwani, all who did an extraordinary session leaving the basic guidelines for a complete boxing reform with the basis on safety, which received a high recognition from the government and press in Indonesia. My deepest appreciation goes to all of them for a job well done.
“With the support of our Board of Governors, I am making this safety program ready and available to any country of the world affiliated with the WBC, in accordance to the specific conditions of every nation, but with definitive recommendations of mandatory minimal basic guidelines for safety.
“Several fatal accidents have happened recently that call for self examination. We should not try to deny the obvious, and must seek truth from experience and reality. To appear or make believe that one state, or one nation, or one institution is the one and only in the world is like saying that the earth is the only planet in the universe.
“Something must be done immediately to continue giving solid steps for safety in boxing. I am strongly inviting, but with humility and respect, all people who have a responsibility in our sport to open the doors, to listen, and to accept whatever is necessary for improvement.
“My experience of many years in boxing and my openess to listening to many ring physicians and boxing experts have led me to strongly believe that, among other individual matters, there are three key factors of danger in boxing.
“The first one: excessive dehydration caused by unprofessional and inhuman sacrifices on weight reduction practices. Second: indifferent or inexperienced performance in refereeing, all who should stop a fight one punch before rather than one punch later, just like many of our heroes have done in the past. They get booed by the public, they get aggressively treated by the corners, but they have saved lives.
“Three: partial and inconsistent medical examinations, due to limited communications about medical files mainly on travelling boxers.
“My next concern is the present suffering with the cancer of modern society that is drugs. However, I only hear and read of sports institutions’ punishments. The WBC has tried to help several boxers in recent years, whose names we prefer not to mention for the dignity and honor of our heroes. Some have won, some have not.
“I strongly intend to do something about it. It will be an alcohol and drug rehabilitation and prevention program. We will create a workforce to plan the creation of a rehab institution and/or agreements with institutions for the same purpose, as well as an extensive and efficient program to reach every and all places of amateur and professional boxers, from club fighters to top professionals.
“We will not be able to do it by ourselves, nor will it be done overnight, but we must take the banner not only to fight, but mainly to protect our athletes from such a cancer. I humbly invite all the attendants to this convention, and those that couldn’t join us here, to accept my invitation – promoters, managers, trainers, boxers and commissioners to join in this gigantic step. Punishment is easy, we can do it sitting at our desk. But our work to help is not. We have to go to the trenches, but we must fo it.
“One other commitment to undertake and pay attention to is the sadness to see those who were our heroes of yesteryear and who live today in poverty, only dreaming with nostalgia of their greatness of the past.
“I learned only last week of a great Filipino former champion who I witnessed taking over 150,000 people to one of his fights who is sick, unable to fight anymore, left by his wife and depressed. One other Thai former great champion, and one of my heros, who married a beautiful actress and had a beautiful son, and today he can hardly talk. They are just a repetitive copy of most of the boxers I know all over the world.
“No commissioner, promoter, manager, or anybody in boxing can be proud to see this very true and very sad matter. Something must be done to stop this record being played over and over again, for centuries, from the origins of boxing, from John L. Sullivan to today. Over and over again, they become champions, they live a lavish life, then give themselves to the men and women who exploit them forever and ever.
“For many years, the WBC has had a modest food and medicine pension fund that is given to quite a few boxers in different countries of the world, but it is not enough. It is based on sanction fees, and we need much, much more than that.
“We must build a solid pension plan. The WBC has taken the first steps to organize a merchandising program, believing that the well-known name of the WBC and its infrastructure in the world could be the basis for the manufacture of WBC products, with agreements for royalties. A taskforce will be created for an extensive study and planning to make this important program a success and once again, we need the support of all of you. We need all of you here to try to see if WBC merchandise can be sold all over.
“But merchandising should not be the only way to work for the boxers’ support. I intend to see how we can all get together to get close to the different governments of the world who have seen boxers place with honor the name of their countries in the map of the world. I intend to have the boxing heroes recognized with government pensions or jobs that could give them a way of living with dignity and honor.
“A third option for acting for boxers that we must open will be the search for philanthropic boxing lovers who are willing to give a little of their time to create a good, solid, serious, honest and free advisory and consulting financial, legal and administrative group who is willing to try to help boxers.
“Our program for safety has given also a way to a thought originally presented by His Majesty The King of Thailand, who is a passionate lover of boxing, to open a school of boxing for children, where the future of the world will lie. It is my intention to start a world program of boxing as the art of self-defense for children, with special safety rules.
“I am taking the opportunity to add to my report of a meeting that I had with the mayor of La Linea de la Concepcion, Juan Carlos Juarez Arriola, who has accepted to start a pilot plan to institute a youth school of boxing in this city in the year of 2006.
“One other subject to discuss is television as a major concern for the future of boxing. It was the phenomenon of television that took the thousands of fans at the arenas to the millionis of fans at home, which has made it very difficult for promoters to promote boxing without the income from television. And to top it all, we must accept that there is a double moral sense of values, at least apparently, in the top TV corporations in the United States, which pay the biggest money for boxing promotions, as it seems that they mostly buy championship 12-round bouts, but some say that they do ot want to recognize boxing organizations.
“In other words, they only want the top of the cream of the boxers, but they seem to close their eyes to the fact that it is the WBC, and some others, who milk the cows from the very first drop and prepare the cream to produce its top. Is that a double moral sense of value or a double standard, or isn’t it? Will TV corporations milk the cows? Of course not. Therefore it is my intention to try to clear things up and have direct face to face amicable and positive meetings with the TV corporations. We need each other. We cannot live without each other, and boxing needs clarity and openness for the good of the sport.
“So, let’s not fool ourselves. A boxer, when he puts on his gloves for the first time, wants to win an Olympic medal and also a world championship, especially the WBC green and gold championship belt.
“We are preparing a World Medical Congress in Acapulco next year from May 14 to 19. We have great hopes for this WBC Medical Congress, because we heard that researchers at UCLA have found a protein that might lead to a medicine to prevent or cure brain injuries.
“There is one other thing I would like to mention. On December 6, the WBC is going to organize The Night of Champions. We are going to have Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Evander Holyfield, Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya, Julio Cesar Chavez, Alexis Arguello, and many others. I hope that all of you will buy chairs or tables.
“I am also very happy to announce the return of the NABF to the WBC after the election of Rex Walker as the new president.
“The WBC will present the Lifetime Achievement Award to two great boxing commissioners. One of them, Ray Clarke, couldn’t be here today, but the other one is here, John Morris. I would like to ratify my special invitation today to the British Board of Control to return to the home that they built, the WBC.
“I cannot deny the fact that sometimes ingratitude and betrayal have hurt me deep in my heart. I cannot hide either the slander and defamation that must be eradicated from the sport of boxing. But this is the price that leadership has to pay. As an American president said, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’ A leader is also a servant, or he cannot be a leader, as servants live to help, to serve the society where they live, to care for people. Service and help to others have been the obligation and the main objectives of my life.
“I will remember with profound gratitude the overwhelming support received from all of my dear friends on the Board of Governors when someone from the outside demanded my resignation as president of the WBC.
“I feel very proud to have won your confidence, as one must work very hard to earn the trust of those who you like to serve. I have always acted with the strength of the WBC’s and my own principles; with the rationality in the establishment of calculated risks; with unbreakable courage and determination in our struggle for what we, the WBC, believe that is right; for what represents the rulings of the majority as our strong values of internal democracy, whether others like it or not. If I wouldn’t, I would then be betraying your confidence and trust.
“I realize that I do have a controversial personality, but it happens that my temperament rebels when I perceive abuse, injustice and inhumanity, and I just cannot act under the influence of the vested interests, or the changing moods or pressures of the moment.
“As tired, disillusioned, frustrated, and overwhelmed by negatives as sometimes I might be, I am very proud to say that I have never kissed any hand, nor have I ever begged for sympathy. We have always acted with confidence in our integrity, with faith in God and the righteousness of our direction, and with unbreakable courage and strong determination to take any action in the interest of justice, human dignity and equality, as well as for safety and the betterment of boxing.
“Regardless of what some might claim, the leadership, the unity, the unbreakable friendship and decisive determination of all of you in the WBC – boxers, commissioners, promoters, boxing physicians, ring officials, officers and all members of the WBC – have taken the sport of boxing to its highest levels ever. We have also brought a sense of compassion to the sport of our love. We are working very hard to help the people that are suffering in New Orleans from Katrina. The WBC is not only working for boxing.
“To close my report, let me humbly invite you all to put to rest our fighting each other; to find ingenious new ways of promotions where all of you can get together for success; to leave fighting to boxers in the ring and in unity meet the real enemies of our sport: alcohol, drugs, outside imcompetent and selfish intervention, unsafety, and the irresponsible dissipation of fortunes, which are won with sweat and blood in the ring.
“I would like to give to every one of my very dear Board of Governors, to all of my hardworking staff in Mexico City, to all who work so hard in the WBC, to our promoters, all our boxers, to our hosts, the EBU and the Spanish Boxing Federation, to the so many loyal and dear friends here from Mexico, to all of you who have flown in from so many countries, my deepest gratitude and my commitment to continue offering the very best of myself to be worthy of your trust and for the betterment of boxing and the WBC.
“To all my dearest, loyal and close friends who I will not mention by name, but all who know that I am referring to them, I offer my deepset gratitude and affection for your tireless work and your continued words of support and friendship, as well as for your unselfish dedication.
“To my son Mauricio, who is so passionately devoted to help me, I can only repay with the purest and most profound love that only a father can give to his son.
“The last two years have been perhaps the most difficult and trying years for my family, for my dear friends who have gone into the path of no return, the WBC, and for me as a professional and as an individual of my whole life, and one must have the mental strength of a giant to be able to overcome it.
“Many of you have always stood strongly by me with your understanding, warmth, patience, affection, care and unwavering trust, which is solidly helping me to pull through without any resentment, and with my faith in God and the future remaining intact.
“I would like to ratify today that I would not doubt for one single second that boxing has given a meaning and a purpose to my life, and that the biggest treasure obtained from my pilgrimage in the sport of my love and my own life is the priceless jewel of my friendship with all of you.
“I leave my heart and gratitude in your hands, and may God bless you all. My heart is your heart, and your heart is my heart. Thank you.”