COLORADO SPRINGS — A new international boxing league is giving this country’s top fighters a chance to receive six-figure payouts, pad their resumes with bouts against high-level competition and gain a taste of the professional ranks while allowing them to preserve their Olympic eligibility.
The World Series of Boxing, a creation of the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) pointed at retaining Olympic talent, features 87 fighters from 49 nations on three continents, with a regular season and playoffs to crown individual and team champions.
Three U.S. franchises — Boston, Los Angeles and Miami — boast 28 boxers in five weight classes, ranging from bantamweight to heavyweight. Twelve are part of the USA Boxing national championships, which continued Thursday with the semifinals at the Olympic Training Center and conclude Saturday with the finals at the Crowne Plaza hotel.
Never before has AIBA — which owns 75 percent of the first-of-its-kind venture, with the other 25 percent owned by sports, entertainment and media giant IMG — allowed boxers to call themselves amateurs despite netting salaries. Fighters are expected to collect $25,000 to $300,000 per year, with a $5,000 bonus for every victory.
AIBA hopes the 12-team league — planning a 12-week regular season from November to March, followed by regional action among the Asia, Europe and North America brackets, semifinals in April and finals in May — offers older boxers motivation to stick around for the 2012 London Games and younger fighters a reason to begin building toward 2016.
— at The Gazette of Colorado Springs.
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The International Olympic Committee doesn’t mind boxers getting paid, no different than swimmers cashing checks for Grand Prix wins or NBA players inking astronomical deals, then creating the latest version of the Dream Team. Even before the WSB formed, boxers were the beneficiaries of training stipends and bonuses from their national federations.
AIBA president Ching Kuo-Wu said: “Boxers have a new choice. . . . For the first time ever, we will see a global, team boxing league, in which the world’s best boxers compete against each other on a regular basis, year after year.”
Boxing certainly could use a boost. Most amateur bouts are sparsely attended. TV ratings for pro fights aren’t high unless it’s a premier matchup. And the fast rise of the Ultimate Fighting Championship has silenced a ton of the thunder boxing once enjoyed.
Former WBO super middleweight world champion Joe Calzaghe, a winner over Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr., told London reporters last year, “Boxing is a dying sport. . . . There is too much politics in boxing, too many belts and too many champions.” He added the sport’s future looks grim “because there are no stars anymore.”
Rau’shee Warren, a two- time Olympian, is gladly lending his star power to the league, part of a Los Angeles franchise that will oppose a Boston team buoyed by Olympian Raynell Williams and a Miami squad that includes Siju Shabazz, second nationally in the light-heavyweight division. Mexico City also will compete in the North America conference.
Warren would have gone pro after a first-round loss at the 2008 Olympics if not for the WSB. He turned down offers — all with guaranteed money. “Sometimes, the offers aren’t good choices,” he said. “Even though it might sound good, it might be the wrong thing.”
He didn’t go as far as agreeing with Calzaghe but conceded that “boxing is losing a lot of fans. This is coming to the new generation.”
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