WBC, WBA, IBF MOVING TOWARDS CROWNING ONE WORLD CHAMPION IN EACH DIVISION
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 31 Jan 2015
Three of the four premier professional boxing organizations, the World Boxing Council, the World Boxing Association and the International Boxing Federation are moving towards crowning one world champion in each weight division.
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman, in an interview with the Manila Standard/Viva Sports said that in the next meeting of the three world organizations, one of the topics on the agenda would be ?a tournament of champions with champion against champion in some divisions? for a start.
He said they plan to ?make the decision immediately so we will have one world champion? as it used to be decades ago.
Sulaiman who initiated the successful summit of the three organizations in Cancun, Mexico that there will be many topics taken up in the February 27 meeting which will be the third get together of the leaders including Gilberto Mendoza of the WBA and Darryl Peoples of the IBF.
WBO president Francisco ?Paco? Valcarcel has so far declined to attend the summit.
Also on the agenda is the issue of the Instant Replay which has been used by the World Boxing Council in a rule which helps take advantage of modern technology to ensure that justice prevails in boxing.
Application of the Instant Replay mechanism saved WBC super bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz in is title defense against Jesus Ruiz last January 17.
Santa Cruz was leading by a shutout in the scorecards of all three judges before he suffered a cut in round seven with referee Kenny Bayless, considered one of the best referees in the world, ruling that the cut was caused by a legal punch as he apparently didn?t see any head-butt.
However, the television replay in-between rounds showed that the cut was caused by an accidental head-butt.
The WBC noted that ?had the fight been stopped the result would have been a TKO win for Ruiz instead of a technical decision for Santa Cruz? who ultimately battered Ruiz to win by an 8th round TKO.
In a statement the WBC headed by president Mauricio Sulaiman said ?the WBC wishes to encourage all boxing jurisdictions to implement the use of instant replay to prevent unjust results and to make certain justice prevails.?
Sulaiman also told the Standard they would the scoring system, the anti-doping issue, weigh in and many other topics but emphasized ?we have to go slowly and make firm, solid decisions not immediate decisions without thinking, without studies.?
WBA president Gilberto Mendoza and and executive vice president Gilberto Mendoza Jr who were in Spain recently said ?The cooperative relationship that exists between the WBA, WBC and IBF is unique. We are trying to create tournaments to have the champions of our organizations compete so there is only one champion as we wish.?
Mendoza noted that ?the collaboration is still very important in search of a clear future for professional boxing.?
Photo (L-R): Darryl Peoples of the IBF, Mauricio Sulaiman of the WBC and Gilberto Mendoza of the WBA.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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