WBC Convention Day 3 Recap

Another day, another recap from the WBC Convention in Las Vegas. Bob Newman reports the story from Fight News. Just to clarify from yesterday, here is the official stance from the WBC website on the issue of open scoring.

"It was also agreed that the WBC will report to the fighters’ corners the score in the fourth and eighth round like it has been made in the WBC bouts through the local sound."

People have brought up the point that the upcoming fight between Andre Ward and Carl Froch is for the WBC belt, so these rules might be in effect. I really doubt that the WBC would rush into this drastic change with such a high profile fight, but I also wouldn't put it past them either.

The biggest story to come out of this day was that the WBC is making an absolutely gigantic tournament. The 40 week tournament called the "WBC World Cup" will span 8 weight classes and will be televised in the US. The included weight classes are Fly, Bantam, Feather, Light, Welter, Middle, Heavy and one more. Light Heavy was the originally included but there were some qualms with some of the smaller countries not having proper representation in that weight class. The final weight class is likely to be super middle, because we need more super middle weight tournaments. Honestly, these weight classes should be the only weight classes in boxing, but that's just my opinion. The participants will be chosen from "various confederation countries of the WBC, silver champions, etc."

It's going to be four rounds for each weight class with cash prizes for the winners of each round. First round $40,000, second round $50,000, third round $60,000 and $250,000 for the finals, meaning that the winner of each weight class will earn $400,000 for the entire tourney. Best case scenario means that a fighter would average $100,000 per fight, but drops to only $50,000/fight for a fighter that loses in the finals. This tournament would start in May 2012. This is an interesting concept, but this has mess written all over it. If we could take away any lessons from the Super Six, it is that backup plans are necessary and that shorter is better. The length might be ok but with the escalating cash prizes, I have no idea how the WBC is going to deal with injuries and replacements. Seems like an alright idea if you are a second-tier veteran, but if you are a prospect or decent draw, you don't accept this invitation. Too much risk and not enough reward for a young fighter to be the 0 on the line. As a side note, the WBC is going to take all of the profits from this tournament and put it into the WBC pension fund.

Other stories from the day include the WBC awarding Dewey Bozella with an award for over coming injustice. For those who don't know, Bozella was wrongly imprisoned for 26 years, being exonerated by the good work of the Innocence Project. Before going to prison Bozella had a decent amateur boxing career and earlier this year, he achieved his dream by winning his first professional bout. There was a judging seminar that focused on close rounds and rounds where one fighter dominates then gets knocked down via a flash knockdown. And finally the WBC decided that the 2013 conference will be held in Cardiff, Wales. You guys should berate Scott into letting me go...(never going to happen).