By Elisinio Castillo
The president of the World Boxing Council (WBC), Mauricio Sulaiman, says the sport of boxing is under threat because there are too many sanctioning bodies, too many titles and other combat sports, like Mixed Martial Arts, are continuing to gain new fans.
Sulaiman says the only way to fix things is for the rival sanctioning bodies to work together.
The WBA has once again come under fire for allowing multiple champions within the same division. For examples, at 160-pounds there are three boxers who hold various forms of the WBA middleweight title. In other divisions there are at least two fighters who claims to be the WBA champion.
"Other disciplines, such as mixed martial arts, have appeared. Besides that, the existence of too many sanctioning bodies, too many championships - which only confuses the fan," Sulaiman said.
At the end of June, Sulaiman held a meeting in Cancun with Gilberto Mendoza of the World Boxing Association (WBA) and Daryl Peoples of the International Boxing Federation (IBF).
One of the items they discussed was the idea of having a singular unified champion at the top of every division.
"The best thing we did was when we sat down to listen to each other without egos and without grandstanding. There are things that we discussed where we as sanctioning bodies can agree on for the sake of the sport," Sulaiman said.
"Gradually you are going to see a lot of progress [but] obviously the proposal is to have a [singular] world champion [in every division]."
http://www.boxingscene.com/sulaiman-too-many-organizations-too-many-titles--81398
The president of the World Boxing Council (WBC), Mauricio Sulaiman, says the sport of boxing is under threat because there are too many sanctioning bodies, too many titles and other combat sports, like Mixed Martial Arts, are continuing to gain new fans.
Sulaiman says the only way to fix things is for the rival sanctioning bodies to work together.
The WBA has once again come under fire for allowing multiple champions within the same division. For examples, at 160-pounds there are three boxers who hold various forms of the WBA middleweight title. In other divisions there are at least two fighters who claims to be the WBA champion.
"Other disciplines, such as mixed martial arts, have appeared. Besides that, the existence of too many sanctioning bodies, too many championships - which only confuses the fan," Sulaiman said.
At the end of June, Sulaiman held a meeting in Cancun with Gilberto Mendoza of the World Boxing Association (WBA) and Daryl Peoples of the International Boxing Federation (IBF).
One of the items they discussed was the idea of having a singular unified champion at the top of every division.
"The best thing we did was when we sat down to listen to each other without egos and without grandstanding. There are things that we discussed where we as sanctioning bodies can agree on for the sake of the sport," Sulaiman said.
"Gradually you are going to see a lot of progress [but] obviously the proposal is to have a [singular] world champion [in every division]."
http://www.boxingscene.com/sulaiman-too-many-organizations-too-many-titles--81398
