Archive for the ‘WBF Boxing’ Category
WBF President Howard Goldberg Speaks
May 17th, 2013 | 
Author: Having lived my whole life in South Africa, I witnessed the ugliness and horror of apartheid, where the masses were ruled by a small minority and where democracy simply did not exist. The minority ruled with great force and often intimidated the masses with torture and victimization. It was a sad time in South Africa’s history, but the release of Nelson Mandela, arguably the greatest man in the world, coupled with free and democratic elections enabled South Africa to become a free and great country. The bottom line is that inevitably democracy and freedom will always triumph over bullying and intimidation. Nowhere in the world should such a horror similar to apartheid be allowed to resurface.
The WBF’s growth in Mexico last year draws an interesting comparison to apartheid. It is sad that certain of our champions have been threatened and forced to relinquish their hard earned WBF titles, simply to accommodate the wishes of certain people who control certain television networks and other people, and like apartheid, control them through fear and intimidation. The WBF has never had a problem with our champions moving to other organizations, in fact in certain cases we have supported them – but all we ask is for these champions to make their choices out of their own free will, and not to be threatened to do so.
We at the WBF believe entirely on fighters having the right to fight for different sanctioning bodies, we believe in fighters’ rights to earn an income to live. They are, after all, professionals who sacrifice much in their striving to be successful. We at the WBF have never, and will never, threaten fighters or managers – we will never stand in the way of fighters who have other opportunities.
We will always strive for honesty, integrity and professionalism and rather than look at the other sanctioning bodies and how they operate, we prefer to look at ourselves and to do things as professionally as possible, always looking at how we can improve and how we can bring legitimacy to boxing.
Mexico is one of the greatest boxing countries in the world and has always been. The passion among boxing people in Mexico is virtually unrivalled. Mexico deserves the best. Mexico deserves having their champions being proud of their titles irrespective of the organization they represent. A champion is a champion! What Mexico doesn’t deserve are bullies who believe they are bigger than this great sport of ours. Boxing would surely be better off without such arrogant crooks who believe in intimidation and bullying, but are in fact the embodiment of corruption themselves.
Howard Goldberg
PRESIDENT: World Boxing Federation
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Tags: Hilongwa Wins Thriller, WBF Intercontinental Title
In an outstanding fight and one of the best seen in Namibia in many years, Joseph “Smokey” Hilongwa produced a mercurial performance by outworking a never say die Sibusiso Twani of South Africa to win the vacant World Boxing Federation Intercontinental Super Flyweight title on Friday (March 29).
The pair went toe-to-toe in a clash promoted by Ludwig Haimbodi and Warriors Promotion, with WBF President Howard Goldberg at ringside taking in the magnificent action along with a partisan crowd at the Windhoek Country Club.
Hilongwa kept coming forward throughout the fight, and his work rate especially to the body was incredible. Twani, counter punched the entire fight, and his work-rate too was almost beyond belief, so much so that he actually was only one point behind on one of the judge’s cards going into the final round.
The scores from judges Timo Haikonda, Herman Garus-Oab and Rassie Erasmus, in what is a strong contender already for fight of the year, were 115-113, 116-112 and a too wide 118-110.
Hilongwa, whose record improves to 12-0 (5), intends to defend the WBF intercontinental title once before issuing a challenge to WBF world champ Juan “Goofy” Montes of Mexico, and said after the bout:
“I enjoyed the fight, and I look forward to defending the title and then taking the world championship as soon as possible. I would love to fight Montes here in Namibia, but I have no problem going to Mexico to beat him!”
Twani’s performance certainly has earned him another title shot, and his record moves now to 7-3-1 (4).
