By Boxing Bob Newman

It wasn’t the official awards banquet, but Day 3 of the WBA Centennial convention saw a more casual dinner party with some awards that were overlooked the night before. President Mendoza honored Argentine boxing journalist Carlos Irusta for his lifetime commitment to the sport of boxing in his native land. Promoter Marshall Kauffman was also recognized, as was Puerto Rico’s first super middleweight champion Manny Siaca, Jr.

Some fun was then doled out as several of the champions on hand were presented with framed cartoon caricatures of themselves, which drew laughs from not only Mendoza and the crowd but the champions themselves.

It had been mentioned earlier during this convention’s coverage that a vintage WBA belt belonging to Eddie Mustafa Muhammad had shown up in the hands of Grant Elvis Phillips. That belt was brought to the stage by Phillips and its owner, Eddie Mustafa himself was then called to the stage where he was presented with the WBA Centennial belt by Bernard Hopkins. This drew the loudest reaction of the evening.

Muhammad stated that the WBA owed him nothing but that he in fact, owes the WBA everything. President Mendoza reiterated that the association will be working to make replicas of that 1980 belt- the first that the organization had since the 1920s.

It is believed that only three of those original red belts were issued to champions Thomas Hearns, Aaron Pryor and Muhammad at that time, before the change to the original version of the current black and gold belt.