By Mauricio Sulaimán
Son of José Sulaimán & WBC President

The Qatar 2022 Soccer World Cup began, with surprises and uncertainty with incredible results for the experts of the world of soccer or football as known in most countries.

Saudi Arabia beat one of the favorites to win the cup, Argentina. In the same way, Japan subdued Germany, and thus it became very clear that the world is smaller than ever; there are no longer giants, or minnows who arrive with the surety of returning home after the third game.

Mexico began with an encouraging draw against Poland. Memo Ochoa thrilled Mexico with that heroic and brilliant and dramatic save on a penalty kick , saving his team from a painful defeat in the opening game. Saturday arrived, the families got together, the atmosphere was like only a National Team game can generate, with patriotic pride waiting for a win or even a draw against the titan Argentina. A wonderful first half, with a Lionel Messi covered, and totally controlled, without having a field of action and minimal interventions. Then, a space and a half chance which electric he pounced upon and exploited. It highlights his greatness with a superb and unstoppable goal. The rest was history, the Argentinians closed down the game, and the second goal came, completely turning off the atmosphere that had been created in the Lusail Stadium, and in homes and restaurants throughout our Mexico.

Unfortunately, fans and media opinion was polarized; the attacks have not stopped and the spirit of everyone in Mexico has declined in a very sad way. Mexico still has chances to qualify, by beating Saudi Arabia combined with Poland defeating Argentina or an Albiceleste victory, or even a draw in the other game, but with different combinations due to goal difference in favour. I am sure that Mexico will qualify for the second round and our country will advance.

In the meantime a very unfortunate controversy has been created in social media. Some of those typical haters started a rumor that Leonel Messi had disrespected Mexico by stepping on the Mexican flag and cleaned the floor with the Mexican jersey. That is all false, Messi exchanged his jersey with a Mexican player and the video shows Argentine team celebrating while changing clothes and Messi is sitting down and as he moves to take off his cleats the tip of his foot touches and moves the Mexican jersey on the floor, that was it and the reality is that jersey are usually on the floor as they are swamped in sweat.

The World Boxing Council had great activity in various countries with important fights this past weekend. In England, Queensberry Promotions held a card with regional titles of our organization, in which the great victory by KO of the WBC silver champion, Hamsah Sheeraz,was the highlight as he continues to position himself as a power force in the middleweight division.

In California, one of the great fights of this 2022 took place, which has had many of them. The WBC super lightweight world title, which was vacant, was disputed. José Chon Zepeda, silver monarch and ranked number one, against former world champion Regis Prograis, a spectacular fight between boxers of the highest level. Eventually Prograis` punching power dominated, and finally, he achieved the technical knockout in the eleventh round, when the Referee stopped the actions, mercifully saving a badly hurt Zepeda. MarvNation Promotions won the purse bid to promote this fight and against all odds and overcoming many obstacles they put it together and promoted a world class event.

Prograis is the new world champion in a division that is one of the best in history. It was where Julio César Chávez shone for many years, also Oscar de la Hoya, Konstantin Tszyu, and even Floyd Mayweather had the Green and Gold at super lightweight.

Now and new monarch Prograis must make two mandatory defences. The first against former world champion José Carlos Ramírez, and the second against the winner of the final eliminatory bout to be held in NY, this coming December 10, between Teófimo López and Sandor Martin. A talented division, equally at lightweight and welterweight, with a host of fights to be seen in the years to come between fighters from these three divisions.

Devin Haney, Vasyl Lomachenko, Isaac Pitbull Cruz, Shakur Stevenson, Ryan Garcia, Georvonta Davis, Regis Prograis, José Carlos Ramírez, Teófimo López, Sandor Martin, Errol Spence, Terence Crawford, Keith Thurman and a few more.

December will be a spectacular month for the WBC, great fights at the end of the year that will stir emotions around the world. This Saturday there will be action and excitement in London, when WBC heavyweight champion, the Englishman Tyson Gypsy King Fury, will defend his crown against his compatriot Dereck Chisora, in front of 70,000 fans. That same day, in Phoenix, Arizona, we will have two world championship fights, the flyweight monarch, Rey Martínez will defend against Spanish Samuel Carmona, and the highly anticipated third fight between Juan Francisco Gallo Estrada and Román “Chocolatito” González will take place with the hope that it be as spectacular as the previous two have been. In this fight the vacant super flyweight world championship will be disputed. In Quebec, Canada there will be the unification of the WBC-WBA light flyweight world championship, with the fight between Kim Clavel and Yesica Nery Plata.

On December 10, the action will focus on the city that never sleeps, New York. Top Rank will present its closing card of the year, with the main fight between former lightweight world champion Teófimo López against the sensation of Spain, Sandor Martin, who defeated Mikey García in a huge upset. This fight will be for the NABF super lightweight championship, as well as a final eliminator for the official challenger from the division.

On December 13, Naoya Inoue, nicknamed The Monster will seek to become the undisputed bantamweight champion of the four organizations, against Paul Butler, in Japan.

On the 17th there will be great activity in the Middle East, with cards in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. We will be publishing the Best of the Year nominations very soon, the Best Fight, Champion of the Year, Knockout of the Year and Event of the Year categories are very competitive.

Did you know…?

Tournaments are very attractive in professional boxing. Don King and HBO organized a tournament to unify the heavyweight in the 1980´s as Mike Tyson emerged as the undisputed champion; later, in 2000-2001, Bernard Hopkins achieved glory by knocking out Félix Tito Trinidad in a middleweight tournament also organized by Don King and HBO. In 2010, Showtime organized the super middleweight tournament named the Super Six, which was very succesful and Andre Ward was crowned the King of the division ; HBO with Tom Loeffler started the Super Fly tournament giving the world unbelievable action with 4 champions facing each other over and over, 12 fights between them with victories crossing over all of them Chocolatito Gonzalez, Gallo Estrada, Carlos Cuadras and Sor Rungvisai and at the end, a new idol was born with Jesse Rodriguez coming into the picture by defeating Cuadras and knocking out Ringvisai; Finally a couple of years ago, the World Boxing Super Series was very successful. It’s time to do the next one!

Today’s anecdote

How Don José is especially missed during these days of the World Cup. He was the first enthusiast and avid fan to support Mexico, under any circumstances. He was not discouraged, on the contrary, he always showed his sympathy and his preference for our National Team, and if he had to watch the games at dawn, he would wake up to do it. He insisted that our team was above everyone else… even if we didn’t win.

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