Report/Photos by Boxing Bob Newman
The emcee for this event was DAZN Boxing broadcaster, Barak “The Boxing Bully” Bess, backed up by WBC board member
Robert Lenhardt.
First up was a video WBC board of directors roll call, followed by the WBC champions roll call- male and female.
BDB president Thomas Pütz gave an enthusiastic welcome to the convention in Hamburg.
A video greeting from Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher welcomed the conventional into his city, which has a rich boxing history, shown in a video.
Germany’s first world champion Max Schmeling made his home in a suburb of Hamburg as did future champs Eckhard Dagge and the Klitschko brothers. Multiple world title fights were held in Hamburg during Germany’s boxing boom in the 90s and early 2000s.
The delegation heard words from champions Gabriela and Sebastian Fundora, Skye Nicolson, Shawn Porter and Tina Ruprecht, who all welcomed the delegates and thanked the WBC for their support.
Chairwomen Jill Diamond and Cristian Mansour spoke about the work that the WBC Cares does around the world and also announced the WBC females dinner cruise Tuesday evening.
Bridger Walker- the WBC ‘s bravest man on Earth turned the mantle over to Abdu Rozik (Abdurozik Savrikul Muhammadroziqi), a Tajikistani entertainer who suffers from dwarfism. Rozik sent a video message thinking the WBC and Bridger Walker for the award and recognition.
Adonis Stevenson was recognized as a champion of life after battling back from his life-threatening injuries suffered in his WBC light heavyweight championship loss to Oleksandr Gvosdyk 6 years ago.
Former IBF featherweight champion Billy Dib also received a Champion of Life award from the WBC at last year’s convention in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This year, Dib bestowed the award to up-and-coming fighter Bruno Macho Prado, he himself, a fellow Cancer survivor.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the local children’s choir that was to have sung the WBC theme song, “We Are the World” ended up being performed by a spontaneous chorus of champions and board members.
A video homage to Jose and Martha Sulaiman was played, including a a very touching clip of former champion Julio Cesar Chavez visiting Martha in her bed just one day before her passing.
President Mauricio Sulaiman shared details of several important meetings during this past year. A February meeting with promoters was held to try and strengthen and unify efforts between promoters to improve the sport.
A meeting with Pope Francis was held at the Vatican later in the year. The Pope himself gave his positive thoughts on the sport of boxing as he himself has been a fan over his lifetime.
Unified champion Oleksander Usyk met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a WBC belt after his win over former champ Tyson Fury. Usyk proclaimed the victory for all of Ukraine.
After Blair Cobbs upset Adrien Broner in a Don King promoter fight for the title of People’s Champion, he never received his belt. Today he finally did so from two former welterweight champions- Shawn Porter and Terence Crawford.
Former WBA And IBF Super featherweight world champion Brian Mitchell from South Africa, was honored with a WBC belt. During his reign, Mitchell was never able to compete for the WBC belt due to the apartheid policy in his native South Africa. Other than winning the title against Alfredo Layne in South Africa, Mitchell also had to defend his belt on the road twelve times, due to the the WBA’s stance on title fights within South Africa. So for five years, he was a champion without a country. Mitchell was ecstatic to finally have the green and gold belt in his hands and expressed how he was always eager to fight his WBC counterpart Azumah Nelson, also an African from Ghana. Sadly due to politics, the fight never materialized.
A group photo was then taken with all the fighters and champions on hand. Tonight will be the opening banquet at 6:00 p.m. in the main ballroom.
