Houichi talks fighter safety, female boxing and more

Houichi appointed Uganda’s Maureen Mulangira to form and head a wing for Africa female professional boxers. He insisted on the value of pushing women into the ring.

Women boxing

“The world has changed,…other continents have produced many female world champions...we have to follow the trend,” said Houichi, who is also the World Boxing Council vice president.

“Some African women have potential: Fatuma Zarika from Kenya who is defending her World Boxing Council World Female Super Bantamweight Title tonight [she beat Mexico’s Yamileth Mercado that Saturday night]; we have Catherine Phiri of Zambia who challenged Zarika for that title (last year), Anisha Basheel of Malawi won the African Boxing Union Female Super Featherweight Title (last year) and the Commonwealth (British Empire) Female Lightweight Title (this year).

Houichi said the women’s commission’s first task is establishing a record of how many women boxers are available in Africa, and how many by country. “Then find out how many can be pushed to contest for the ABU title, and later we can push for the WBC title or any other title.”
“Then engage the promoters to ensure there’s at least a women’s bout on every event…the fans will start accepting female boxing.”

Fighter safety
When Houichi first visited Kampala for the ABU Convention, in 2005, it was just months after Mohammed Basule, a Ugandan boxer had died in Nairobi after being knocked out. A lot was wrong about this fight. How is the ABU addressing the matter that Ugandan boxing administrators still do not treat boxers’ safety with due strictness?

“I remember a guy came and picked a boxer without the permission of the local commission, crossed the border,” Houichi recounts, “…now after trouble happened, they wanted to blame the commission. But the commission asked them for the clearance letter, which allowed the boxer to fight in Kenya, the promoter did not any.”
“We have rules: each boxer must have an updated boxing licence to ensure they are fit to fight. The local commission must go through the files, the medical reports, etc.”
He added: And immediately after any (ABU or WBC title) fight the boxer must be subjected to an anti-doping test. And any fight must have a doctor by the ringside.

Thirteen years since that ABU meet at Hotel Equatorial, we asked Houichi to assess the status of Ugandan boxing. He said by then (2005) Uganda had good boxers like Badru Lusambya, who had won 11 fights (10KOs), the African Boxing Union Super Welterweight Title and defended it once. “But that boxer and many others were abused by promoters…Lusambya was taken to Russia, Italy, to fight but without a proper plan for his career but to boost careers of European fighters.”
Houichi said he even wrote to the Ugandan commission and the promoters against taking boxers to losing trips…“but anyway that’s in the past…” there is still hope in Ugandan boxers.

Governments and facilities
Houichi implored African governments to enhance professional boxing by providing infrastructure like well-equipped gyms. He cites the example of Zarika, who returned to Kenya with his new British manager to prepare for her WBC title defence. The manager was shocked that a world champion did not have a gym.
In August, Houichi said, he was in DR Congo [who have just joined the ABU] but he was disappointed that they do not even have a roofed training area, meaning they are at the mercy of the weather. If it rains they don’t train.

“Seriously, how will you produce world champions without quality facilities?”
Africa Boxing Series
At the convention, a South African businessman, Themba Ndlwana, presented a proposal of the Africa Boxing Series, a project that will stage fights in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa round the year.
Houichi endorsed the project that is expected to revive African boxing, right from the grassroots. “I liked the project…if a promoter has a contract with a boxer, when that boxer fights the promoter gets a percentage on that purse…so all a promoter needs to do is keep their boxer active, at least four fights a year… it’s that simple.”

Legacy
Houichi has been at the helm of the ABU since 1996. He is proud that the ABU title is nowadays respected. More so, he said that WBC nowadays recognises African ring officials, unlike before. If an event is in Africa, at least two Africans are employed. And the night Zarika fought Mexico’s Yamileth Mercado in Nairobi, the three judges and the referee were all African. Houichi added that the ABU convention in Kampala was being reported on widely across the WBC platforms. “That our convention is recognised by the world’s biggest professional body is a big achievement.

“Our challenge now is to make as many more world champions as possible.”
Houichi insisted that Uganda has the basics—the good boxers—but to recoup its past ring glory, administrators must embrace good management. “I hope the new administration by Salim (Uhuru) will handle matters better.”
******
You insist that promoters be loyal to ABU titles but they say they incur a lot, your sanctioning fee is high, yet even when boxers win the ABU titles their records do not rise significantly in the world rankings. It’s why they look elsewhere
If you win the ABU title you are already rated among the top 40 in the world. To be in, maybe, the top 20 depends on your previous record.
Yes, not all ABU champions can challenge for the WBC title…no problem…But the problem is with the promoters who come to us with threats ‘we have IBU or IBO titles...’

The presenter of the Africa Boxing Series said one of their areas of interest is developing the grassroots boxing. How are you going to develop the grassroots without clashing with the amateur system?
We won’t clash, instead we will only complement the amateurs systems. If you don’t have good amateur boxers you won’t get good ones in professional. We need each other; that’s why at the WBC we even have the WBC Amateur Championship as an answer to Aiba’s failures [Aiba is the international body for amateur boxing]. The WBC Amateur Championship has been staged in Kigali, Rwanda, panama, Canada, Venezuela.

What is the WBC Amateur Championship likely to achieve?
To give the amateurs an opportunity to be active; otherwise there’s a problem. The amateur system [of Aiba] is in troubles. And the IOC wanted to ban boxing from the Olympics but we wrote to the IOC president that strongly opposing that move—boxing has always been an Olympics sport.

You mean you (WBC) have your disagreements with Aiba but you don’t want their rift with IOC to reach the extent of banning boxing from the Olympics
Bravo…that’s it exactly… We are against Aiba because their way of handling things is what has caused all these problems. Remember after the Rio Olympics [2016] Aiba sacked all its 36 ring officials. [After his defeat in Rio, Ireland’s Michael Conlan said: “Amateur boxing stinks from the core right to the top …I think boxing is dead. It’s about whoever pays the most money.” Aiba had always labelled its officiating system as “five-star”, until corruption allegations against it became too loud to ignore].

Now that’s crazy, it means that all the boxers who won medals are not genuine champs; that’s total failure of the system. You can sack two, three officials but 36? No, no…Aiba lost credibility.
So tell me about your experience as an international fights supervisor; those most memorable fight

It was Lennox Lewis vs McCall (Oliver) in London, 1994. When Lennox was knocked down in the second round…the referee [Jose Guadalupe Garcia] stopped the fight…[it was an upset, Lennox’s first loss in 26 pro fights]. But years later in New York people told Lennox ‘Guadalupe saved your career—by stopping the bout—otherwise finito.’ It’s not a problem losing a bout, instead of losing your health and career.
The other one was (Floyd) Mayweather. He fought with one arm, when the other was broken but he won.

Have you presided over a fight that ended in tragedy?
Tragedy? No. it wasn’t tragedy…It was complaint. It was Thobella (Dingaan) of South Africa against (Glenn) Catley of UK for the WBC World Super Middleweight title [in the Big Top Arena, Gauteng, South Africa on Sep 1, 2000].
Catley was way up on points and winning [actually the judges had scored it: 108-100, 105-103, 104-104 for Catley] but he failed to control the fight. Late in the 12th round [2:53 minutes], Catley attacked, Thobella moved aside and knocked him down, the referee counted, finito. Catley was knocked out.

In the post-match press conference, they said ‘that was a very good decision, we are very happy, thank you...’ then later they made a claim to the WBC that ‘the supervisor and the referee never checked the boxers’ gloves and bandages; that Thobella had iron on his hands…
But if Thobella had iron, do you think he is stupid to show his hands?! But they were wrong…we had done everything right.
Positively, though, thanks to this problem, we decided that we check the gloves before they are given to the referee.
Didn’t the WBC punish the Catley camp for that weird claim?
No, no, we didn’t punish them…but it was not good. It was not right.
The problem when an African wins there’s doubt…There are calls for investigations.

Did you ever box?
No…I was a basketball player…My father Taieb Houichi was one of the best amateur boxing referee for Aiba. He was also vice president of Aiba—the good Aiba, not this one.
I played basketball to the level of international junior. Then I left to France... I was not involved though I was still determined…
I joined boxing as the vice secretary general of the Tunisian federation for two years, two years as vice president, then president. Then in 1973 Jose Sulaiman [the former WBC supremo] invited me to join the WBC.
So you got the boxing inspiration from your father, right?
Yeah, I was with him when he was involved in boxing.
Africa faces a chronic problem of boxers who disappear from abroad. I think it’s because there’s no systematic transfer of boxers from amateur to professional like in other sports, say football. Have you (WBC) thought of tackling that problem?

That’s not our business…let’s say a professional boxer has gone to fight abroad and disappears…that’s not our duty it’s the duty of the promoter to protect his boxer.
But even when the amateurs go for say, the Olympics, your promoters grab them from the airport, without permission.
You see at the Olympics promoters prepare themselves to scout for the best boxers. So if no one is there to guard them (the boxers), the promoters take them.

But I feel the disconnect in the transition from amateur to pro is what fuels this poaching because the amateurs boxers do not see a proper passage from here to there
You are right, the problem some promoters ignore the amateur rules, grab the [amateur] boxers and give them contracts…but that’s not our duty to control that.
You see like the case of Cuban boxers. They had talent but they were not allowed to turn pro when they go back to their country [until the ban was lifted in 2013]. So promoters used to hook them and make them US citizens.