Mauricio Sulaiman, Turki Alalshikh unveil WBC Grand Prix of Boxing
Dec 9, 2024 • 3:37 PM ET
HAMBURG, Germany – Mauricio Sulaiman and Turki Alalshikh have announced the WBC Grand Prix of boxing.
The announcement came at the 62nd annual World Boxing Council Convention on Monday.
The Grand Prix will be a World Cup of the sport, a tournament featuring 128 prospects across four weight classes, and was a dream of Mauricio’s late father, Jose, the former WBC head.
The entrants will be no older than 26 and have no more than 10 fights to their name. The tournament will start in February and feature quarterfinals and semifinals over eight rounds, with the 10-round finals to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The weight classes contested will be featherweight, junior welterweight, middleweight and heavyweight.
Earlier in the evening, Alalshikh was named the WBC’s Man of the Year, an award previously won by Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela and Pope Francis.
Alalshikh addressed the audience and urged Wladimir Klitschko, the former heavyweight champion, to come out of retirement to consider a fight with either the winner of the Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury bout on December 21, or the February 22 contest between IBF titleholder Daniel Dubois and Joseph Parker.
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, a BWAA award winner, and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
