As Cuba and the United States prepare for the second leg of their quarterfinal match on Saturday night, World Series of Boxing CEO Karim Bouzidi is unconcerned by a last-minute change of venue.
The first leg of the quarterfinal was scheduled to take place two weeks ago in Miami. However, issues with athlete stipends raised objections among the state’s boxing commission, and USA Boxing suggested the match not take place in Florida.
However, Bouzidi says the WSB fully plans to return to the state in future.
"It is unfortunate that we have been forced to change the state," Bouzidi tells Around the Rings, "but [Florida boxing officials are] not happy also about that, so we just have to make sure that everybody is happy and everybody follows the rules."
Instead, the second leg is now scheduled to take place in Salem, New Hampshire. Although Bouzidi says moving the match was "not easy in terms of logistics," it presents a host of new opportunities to WSB.
"Everybody is moving to promote the event, so we will test our product in a new state. We’ll have to face new fans, new people," said Bouzidi.
In the meantime, what was originally scheduled to be the second leg in Havana instead became the opener last Friday. Cuba swept all five bouts from the U.S. team in front of a raucous crowd of nearly 16,000 fans at the Ciudad Deportiva.
"It’s the event each time we have a fight in Cuba."
The history between the United States and Cuba made the night stand out.
"For them, I don’t want to mix the politics with the sports, but this match created more interest than other matches. It was in Havana. The city has a big history with the U.S.A."
The interest in matches like U.S.-Cuba and Russia-Ukraine has the CEO considering the series’ growth.
"We have 16,000 people attending the event in Cuba," said Bouzidi. "We expect to have that amount of people everywhere, and I’m sure within one, two, three years, we’ll have that."
Changes made up to this point by the four-year old series include the fact that teams represent countries now instead of cities, as well as the move to five weight classes to create synergy with the Olympic program.
Bouzidi also sees more teams coming into the fold. He says Brazil is interested in joining and Great Britain, who hosted a team in previous seasons, could return.
Details of additional teams could be revealed in the next few weeks.
Written by Nick Devlin
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