By David Finger
Photos: Sumio Yamada

The final day of the 31st annual WBO Boxing Convention concluded on Thursday November 1 at 8 AM. Although all attendees were eagerly anticipating the upcoming ratings commission discussion, which promised this year to be particularly contentious, as well as the gala banquet scheduled that night, there was still some other important business that transpired that morning. Perhaps most noteworthy, President Francisco “Paco” Valcarcel gave his President’s Report, which included a special thanks to Panama and the El Panama Hotel. He also reminisced fondly of the 2003 WBO Convention which also took place in Panama, as well as those members who were there and who sadly are no longer with us. WBO founder and the first President of the WBO, Luis Bautista Salas, also took a moment to remember his reign as President and how much Paco has meant for the WBO and how much he accomplished as President of the WBO since taking over, which prompted the attendees to give President Valcarcel a standing ovation.

President Valcarcel then discussed having other nations apply for membership with the WBO. Valcarcel also welcomed a new attendee, Nurshin Tanat of Kazakhstan and executive director of SP Boxing. Tanat presented the President with a gift from Kazakhstan as well.

Valcarcel also discussed the status of the dispute with Puerto Rico over the WBO’s tax exempt status, and reiterated that the WBO has still not closed the door on relocating to Florida if the Puerto Rican government fails to approve the WBO’s certification.

“The ball is in Puerto Rico’s hand,” Valcarcel said of the proposed move. “It will be very unjust if they don’t approve us. The ball is in their court.”

From there, the WBO played a touching video of former WBO world champion Pedro Alcazar, who died after suffering brain injuries after a world title fight in 2002. He then spoke about the Billy Joe Sanders case and Sanders rather concerning behavior in 2018.

“Billy Joe Saunders unfortunately a champion with so much talent and was involved in some situations that were not good on social media that ruined his reputation.” Valcarcel said. “We amended our rules. We do not support domestic violence. If you are involved in domestic violence…we will not tolerate domestic violence.”

Still, Valcarcel remained cautiously optimistic that Saunders had seen the light and was taking positive steps to correct his behavior.

“Everything (appears to) has a good ending,” Valcarcel added. “Billy Joe sent us a public apology. We issued a resolution. He was suspended for six months. He has to do community work, work with young people. If you are going to be a champ you have to do things from the heart. Three months after his suspension we can consider if he will go into the ratings…if he will be reinstated. The information I have so far is that he started well and he is complying with what we asked of him. But he must continue. He must see this through. If this is not sustainable he will not be in the ratings. We want champions that will be good. That will be role models to future generations. If not we don’t want you.”

From there, the location of the 2019 WBO Convention was announced, with Tokyo Japan being named as the venue with San Juan, Puerto Rico as the backup.

The day then continued with the ratings commission session, which as always led to numerous promoter and managers jockeying to get their fighter up in the rankings.

Perhaps most noteworthy was how newly crowned WBO Middleweight champion was allowed an optional title defense in February, in part due to the suspension of Saunders.

They WBO Gala Dinner took place that night and in a moment that few attendees would ever forget, Roberto Duran joined the other world champions on the stage where he was recognized among the noted world champions in attendance.

Terrance Crawford, who was in attendance, was named WBO Fighter of the Year.