At some point, Mairis Briedis and Yuniel Dorticos can look forward to competing in the World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight tournament.
For now, the harsh truth is facing the reality of yet another delay.
As sporting and entertainment events around the world are postponed—or canceled outright—due to coronavirus concerns, the last remaining bout of the second season of the WBSS tournament is determined to hold the line as currently scheduled. The cruiserweight final is due to take place on March 21 at Riga Arena in Briedis’ hometown of Riga, Latvia. However, a state of emergency declared by the Latvian government included the distinction that “public events, meetings, processions and pickets with more than 200 participants are banned as of March 13 till April 14, 2020.”
Tickets have long ago sold out for the show, with the venue holding more than 10,000 even with seats bumped out to make room for all the of the bells and whistles that comes with a WBSS event. That aspect further impacts plans to proceed in present form.
“What we're doing is assessing the situation at the moment.,” Kalle Sauerland, chief boxing officer of tournament organizer Comosa AG told BoxingScene.com. “When they made this general announcement, it's... very complicated. The Latvian government has stated up to 200 people (per event). The question is what does that mean—is it total personnel? Is it 200 (paying) spectators?
“The WBSS production is not like a normal show, we have huge production crews.”
Even a pared down version would bring closure to a season two that began more than 17 months ago, and with Briedis and Dorticos already out of the ring for nine months even if they see through the March 21 date.
The quarterfinal round went off without a hitch, although its aftermath caused delays in launching the semifinals across three weight divisions—bantamweight, junior welterweight and cruiserweight. The bantamweight and junior bantamweight brackets concluded last fall, all while Briedis (26-1, 19KOs) and Dorticos (24-1, 22KOs) have patiently awaited their marching orders to determine cruiserweight supremacy.
Both scored knockout wins in separate semifinal bouts on the same card last June in Riga. Miami’s Dorticos delivered what was hailed as the 2019 BoxingScene.com Knockout of the Year, flattening previously unbeaten Andrew Tabiti in ten rounds to storm into the finals one year after having been shown the exit in the semifinal round of WBSS’ 1st season.
Briedis was also a season one semifinalist who improved on that showing the second time around, although his advancement has proven far more problematic. The former two-time cruiserweight titlist scored a 3rd round stoppage of Krzysztof Glowacki in a wild shootout—so much so, that it became the subject of two separate investigations.
The latter called for Riga’s first-ever home-grown champion to enter an immediate rematch with Glowacki as per a ruling from the World Boxing Organization (WBO), whose title was at stake. It would have meant delaying the WBSS tournament and Dorticos having to wait out the result of such a fight.
Briedis instead opted to vacate his title and proceed with plans to challenge for the Ali Trophy at stake in all WBSS finals. Of course, it meant having to wait out a new date, with plans of staging the fight last December pushed back to January and now March.
And now… who knows.
“We are legally assessing what [the Latvian government declaration] actually means, and how many people we can send from the sporting side,” noted Sauerland, who hopes to have a final decision by this weekend,
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox