As we head towards the WBC’s annual convention, president Mauricio Sulaiman fields some media questions about his organizations recent and upcoming moves as it pertains to world title fights in numerous weight classes. Here’s some of what he had to say below.
Sulaiman on whether they will order Pitbull Cruz to fight Dalton Smith at super lightweight
“We’re going to see the mandatories on Wednesday. Every category is different, has different elements. I know they both want to fight each other and I know it will be a great fight, so we will see what happens.”
On his welterweight champion Ryan Garcia wanting to defend his title against Floyd Mayweather
“Yeah. Ryan fought the mandatory
Conor Benn, we mandated that last convention, and you can never count out Floyd Mayweather. We have so many examples. Most of them are bad examples. Muhammad Ali, Chavez, those great champions that end their career in a low — Tyson. But there are also good examples.
“I mean, Manny [Pacquiao] he was criticized, we were criticized for allowing that fight, and he almost became champion…It’s a matter of evaluating whether Floyd has full medicals and has a boxing license — the rules obviously allow him to fight for the title.”
On Benavidez fighting Cieslak for the WBC cruiserweight title
“Cieslak became interim champion. The cruiserweight division has gone through so many difficulties for three or four years going back to Badou Jack, Mikaelian, fighters getting hurt, Rozicki from Canada. So, the WBC ordered an interim championship which Cieslak won, and we were waiting for Mikaelian, he beat Badou Jack, that was given a voluntary defense, and we were waiting for Mikaelian to fight a voluntary — didn’t take place.
“So, we ordered Benavidez, who requested the WBC to order that fight as mandatory. We did. And while they reach an agreement, the two promoters, Mikaelian signed a contract to take another fight. So, he lost the title by not fighting the mandatory.”
On what he expects to come out of this convention
“Today we have been trying to implement a few [changes] that are a little bit more technological. For example, the instant replay has been a great success worldwide. And open scoring is something that we’re really pushing, that the United States and the UK are still not fully into open scoring, but the fans and especially the boxers love it.
“But our main concern today is dehydration, weight loss, weight cutting, and so many dangers that fighters that do not do the correct process to lose weight go into…It is a clear that there is a trend to do an illegal systems to lose the weight.”
