Change requires one person to make the first bold step, and new World Boxing Council President, Mauricio Sulaiman is to be applauded for attempting to implement change.
Sulaiman who took over from his father Jose after he passed away earlier this year is carrying on where his father left off, with the WBC leading the way once again in trying to implement changes in the sport, for the long term good of the sport.
The meeting of Boxing’s Championship bodies has been talked about but has not happened for far too long. The last meeting was when Gilberto Mendoza the President of the WBA met in Mexico some years ago with the then WBC President Jose Sulaiman.
Mauricio Sulaiman is trying to re-ignite that initiative. He has said that the main reason for the meting is to try to unify rules, so that there is an agreed united standard in the sport, as in most sporting activities, that fans and boxers alike know and understand. One issue the fans would like to see is the restoration of less World Titles, with the “Super” weight categories being put to bed once and for all. There are quite simply too many world titles and as a result some boxers are able to adopt that moniker, yet are honestly not worthy of it. Sadly this is unlikely to happen.
At the moment it is expected that the big four will take part in the proposed summit meeting of Boxing’s super powers, the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO. These are the established bodies and the one’s whose titles carry the most kudos. Fight fans would like to see these trimmed back to two, possibly three at the most, but that will never happen.
Some would say that there should be one, which is agreed, but there is some magic in boxing when there is a unification bout between the two Champions of the WBC and WBA. One thing that all of the boxing bodies must do is make their Champions fight the number one contender within a set period, as in the past. Sadly in modern day boxing, to increase their worth as the World Champion too many fighters avoid the top contenders and fight lower ranked opponents to stay at the top that little bit longer. This does the sport no good whatsoever.
No date has been set for the meeting as yet, but let us hope that progress can be made and as proposed the bodies can indeed unify many of the rules.
