World's Top Boxers Signed to World Series of Boxing Franchises

Monday, 28 June 2010 - England, London

AIBA President C.K. Wu at the WSB International Draft in London

Some of the world's top boxers were today drafted into twelve World Series of Boxing (WSB) squads following an International Boxer Draft, held in London. Following the boxer draft the Team Draw was held to determine the final competition schedule, revealing when the teams will compete against each other in their conference from the start of the WSB Regular Season on November 19th this year.

In total 87 boxers from around the world were chosen by the franchises to make up their quota of international boxers to start the first WSB season. Big names drafted today included the Ukrainian National Champion Sergiy Derevyanchenko, chosen by the Milan franchise, the popular Irish Olympic silver medallist Kenny Egan who heads to the Miami squad and German National Champion Ronny Beblik, who joins WSB Boston.

In some of the day's other big signings, Australian super-heavyweight National Champion Trent Rawlins joins WSB Miami, who completed their signings to a strong Miami squad with the signature of Beijing Olympian Jose Payares from Venezuela. In Europe the Milan franchise added to their strong national squad with the signing of six boxers across four weight divisions, including the AIBA World Championships silver medalist Benjey Zimmerman from the Dutch Antilles, and the promising Montenegrin heavyweight Bosko Draskovic, a quarter-finalist at this year's European Championships.

In the Asia conference Delhi were the day's big movers, signing nine boxers across five different weight divisions, adding to their promising national squad which already includes some of India's finest competitors such as Vijender Singh. Olympic bronze medalist Bahodirjon Sultonov, Ukrainian Champion super-heavyweight Roman Kapitonenko and Beijing Olympics semi-finalist Abdelhafid Benchabla will all joining up with their new team mates in the Indian capital over the coming months.

Boxers from as far afield as Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Haiti and New Zealand were included in the draft, which saw the twelve franchises competing hard to sign the best talent available, to strengthen their existing squad of national boxers.

Dr C. K. Wu, president of AIBA, the International Boxing Association, welcomed boxers, franchise owners and media to the historic inaugural draft. The World Series of Boxing is an initiative of the AIBA President, who opened the proceedings by saying: "Today, boxers have a new choice. A competition that will not only offer them long-term security, a guaranteed salary and regular competitive boxing at the highest level, but that will also allow them to retain their eligibility for the Olympic Games. That competition is the World Series of Boxing. For the first time ever, we will see a global, team boxing league in which the world's best boxers compete against each other on a regular basis, year after year."

The International Boxer Draft allowed the twelve WSB teams to select from a pool of 175 boxers from 64 countries to complete their squads of national boxers. Under WSB rules, each team must comprise a minimum of three boxers who are not from the team country. The luck of the draw determined who got first pick of the talent as the boxers were drafted in turn in each of the WSB's five weight classes (54kg, 61kg, 73kg, 85kg, 91+kg).