The President of the World Boxing Association (WBA), Gilberto Jesus Mendoza, met with the Secretary General and CEO of IBA, Chris Roberts, on Sunday during the boxing event that took place in Madrid, Spain, where Jennifer Miranda won the interim featherweight belt of the pioneer organization against Teresa Almengor.
Both entities have worked hand in hand in a cooperation agreement that has yielded great results and will continue to be strengthened. The two leaders talked about future projects, including the development of the technical officials such as referees, judges and trainers. They spoke about the sensations of the current WBA trainers’ course in partnership with the IBA and it is expected that other courses for judges and referees will be held in the near future.
“The WBA-IBA alliance strengthens boxing, boxers need to have more activity and IBA is doing very well in that sense. In addition, the trainers’ course that we are both promoting has been a success so I think we will soon hold the WBA-IBA officials’ seminar to improve the standard of judges and referees. Undoubtedly, together we are stronger and we contribute more to boxing”, Mendoza assured from the Spanish capital.
Another point to be discussed was the development of the IBA Champion’s Night, whose events have had the support of the WBA and with bouts for both regional and world titles of the pioneer organization. Fighters such as Albert Ramirez, Albert Batyrgaziev, Muslim Gadzhimagomedov, among others, have had the opportunity to fight and win WBA championships in this great project.
In addition, the occasion was a step forward in the goal to achieve a unified WBA-IBA fight in December, which will have Gadzhimagomedov facing Julio La Cruz in the ring in Dubai, during the annual IBA congress.
That Dubai congress will be important because it will relaunch a league project similar to the old World Series of Boxing (WSB) and will give the opportunity for fighters from the IBA circuit to fight boxers from the WBA rankings.
The president expressed his support for the IBA in its goal to keep boxing growing worldwide, in addition to expressing his excitement for all the upcoming projects. He was very honored to thank Mr. Roberts for all the collaboration and hopes that the ties will continue to be strengthened for the benefit of the sport.
