A new professional boxing championship developed

By Gianluca (Rio) Di Caro

London, UK – Wednesday  18th June 2014
The MBC International Championship, a new professional boxing championship developed by the Malta and London, UK, based Malta Boxing Commission in partnership with New Jersey, USA based Group One Sports and Entertainment Consulting, launches today.

L-R BoxFit UK’s Ken Mills joins boxers Marianne Marston, Mark Prince and George Hillyard to proudly show off the new BoxFit sponsored MBC International Championship Belt / photo: MBC International

The raison d'etre of the new Championship is to provide boxing promoters worldwide with a high profile, yet cost effective, championship, designed to give upcoming young fighters their first taste of International Championship boxing.

The MBC International Championship is for both Male and Female boxers, the men competing in ten three minute rounds, whilst the females compete for ten two minute rounds.

An innovative aspect of the MBC International Championship is the partnering with companies to provide additional benefits, through a contingency sponsorship programme, for the competing boxers.

The first to sign up to the partnership programme is British boxing equipment retailer BoxFit – www.boxfituk.com - who as part of this programme offer boxers competing in the Championship a special discount on the extensive range of products that they supply from their superstore in Harold Wood, Essex in the UK and on-line worldwide.

Overseeing all aspects of the MBC International Championship is a highly accomplished board, consisting of experienced sanctioning officials, former World Champions, as well as representatives from the management and promotion side of the boxing industry.

Heading up the MBC International board are former Chairman of the Michigan Boxing Commission (now known as the Michigan Unarmed Combat Commission) Albert Low (Chairman) and WBU Europe Managing Director and Malta Boxing Commission Vice President Gianluca Di Caro (President), who represent the sanctioning element of the board along with Malta Boxing Commission Permanent General Secretary Marc James and German elite referee and judge Alf Sprung.

Former World Champions Steve ‘Celtic Warrior’ Collins, ‘Terrible’ Tim Witherspoon and Vinnie Curto provide representation of the boxers, along with Marianne ‘Golden Girl’ Marston, who is the voice of female boxing on the board.

Providing input from the management and promotion arena are Richard Hone and Johnny Eames.

On making the announcement of the new Championship a clearly elated Gianluca Di Caro said,

“It gives me and my fellow board members extreme pleasure to announce the launch of the MBC International Championship.

It’s really is such an exciting project, one that will give boxing fans the world over the opportunity to see the sports’ future stars in international championship action.

Promoters will like the fee structure, which is competitive to put it mildly, even more so due to sponsorship of the Championship belt by BoxFit, which enables us to include the belt within the already very reasonable sanctioning fee until September 2015.

The boxers themselves will benefit greatly, not just by fighting for the title but also through our contingency partnership programme.

BoxFit is also the first to partner with us on the contingency sponsorship side, but there will be more on board in the coming months, I expect some will be providing discounts or goods like BoxFit, whilst others will offer financial incentives, either way it is a great programme that will truly benefit the boxers.

Coming from a motorsport background, where contingency funds for racers are the norm, I have to say I was surprised that this type of fund was not already a standard in boxing, perhaps it will be now we’ve started one for the boxers campaigning for our titles.

Originally we were going to launch in September, as we wanted to launch with a few more partners signed up to the contingency programme, but have had to bring this forward, as we already have a number of MBC International title fights lined up.

At this time the first MBC International title fight will take place in Malta on August 22nd, however we are in talks that could see the first title fight take place right here in London as early as the 2nd August.

Either way, we are really looking forward to crowning the first MBC International Champion this coming August.