By Boxing Bob Newman
Wednesday night in Acapulco, Mexico, on the promenade of the Palacio Mundo Imperial hotel, the 60th WBC annual awards banquet was held. Easily, 1000 attendees were on hand, including over 50 champions, male and female.
Awards were as follows, but not limited to:
Couple of the Year: Bismark & Elena Morales
Good Fellow Award: Patrick Cusack
Committee Chairman of the Year: Dean Lohuis
Lady of the Year: Christiane Manzur, Jill Diamond and Lilia Schaefer
WBC Ambassador: Marcos Arienti
Commissioner of the Year: Domingo Matas
Confederation of the Year: British Boxing Board of Control
Working Horse Award: Oksana Semenishina
MVP: Kevin Mooney
Commission of the Year: Middle East Professional Boxing Commission
Woman of the Year: Enza Jacoponi
Confederation of the Year: NABF
Human Equality Award: Charlie Hall
Lifetime Achievement Award: Charlie Giles
Committee Member of the Year: Malte Müller
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I didnt notice the “Fightnews Poster of the Year” award.
Mauricio Sulaimán is corrupt and racist. To ban all Russian and Belarusian nationality fighters from the WBC rankings is disgusting and shameful. Fighters from EVERY nationality should qualify in their rankings. These are boxers NOT politicians.
How is it racist? There’s an argument that, like you said, they’re boxers not politicians. But there’s also the argument that there’s a price to be paid for going to war unnecessarily and that price (albeit a small one) is that your athletes will not be recognized on the world stage.
We can argue back and forth whether it’s the right policy – but it’s not racist. Racist would be banning them because they’re white, not because they’re from a country at war.