By Miguel Rivera
Mauricio Sulaiman, President of the World Boxing Council, is taking a hard line with any ranked fighter who decides to compete in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
AIBA sanctions amateur (Olympic-style) boxing matches and awards world and subordinate championships. The AIBA has been trying to build its own professional version of boxing, where boxers would retain their Olympic eligibility, through the team tournament league known as World Series of Boxing and AIBA Pro Boxing.
They are now taking things a step further by pushing for a new rule to allow professional fighters, and current world champions, to compete in the Olympics against up and coming amateurs.
Sulaiman has written to the International Olympic Committee and advised them of the danger involved with matching professional fighters against young amateurs with no pro experience.
The WBC has now set down a rule to ban any fighter for two-years if they decided to compete in the Olympics. They won't be banned from fighting, but they will be banned from being ranked by the WBC or fighting for a WBC world title. Any WBC champion who decides to compete will surely be stripped of his world title.
"Any boxer under the WBC who goes to Olympics will be banned for two years," Sulaiman said.
The feels the amateur organization is playing with fire by inviting some of the very best in the world, like Wladimir Klitschko, Manny Pacquiao and Amir Khan to compete in the Rio Olympics against young fighters with no seasoning to face this level of opponent.
Adding to the AIBA's rule of eliminating headgear, the situation becomes more alarming because the contests would become a reflection of a professional fight.