IBA Secretary General & CEO, Chris Roberts OBE met with the President of the World Boxing Association (WBA), Gilberto Mendoza during an event taking place in Madrid, Spain. The boxing night saw Spain’s Jennifer Miranda defeat fellow Spaniard Victoria Albans for the WBA Interim Featherweight belt.

Further to the collaborative and joint partnership work between both IBA and WBA, the executives discussed future projects that will include the wider development of technical officials, along with referees, judges and coaches. This work has set really good precedence, with courses already being conducted over the past few months, including for both coaches and officials.

With IBA Champion’s Night already demonstrating the high-level of events that are currently being managed, bouts have already been combined between both organizations, with several boxers already attaining WBA titles, including Cuba’s Lenar Perez, Venezuela’s Albert Ramirez, Russia’s Albert Batyrgaziev, Muslim Gadzhimegomedov, Artur Subkhankulov, and others.

We look forward to a unified IBA-WBA title fight to take place in December during the Dubai IBA Congress between both Julio La Cruz from Cuba, and Muslim Gadzhimagomedov from Russia.

The Congress in Dubai will also see the re-launch of our league project, based on the World Series of Boxing (WSB), which will see those boxers from WBA having those opportunities to integrate with the IBA.

Mr Mendoza expressed his continued support for IBA and looks forward to those new and exciting events on a league basis throughout 2025. Chris Roberts OBE thanked Gilberto Mendoza for his loyal support over the past few years and suggested that the joint knowledge and expertise between both organizations will see something different for all boxing fans across the world in the new year.

‘The WBA-IBA union strengthens boxing,’ Mendoza said. ‘Boxers need to be more active, and IBA is doing very well in that regard. In addition, the training course that we are both promoting has been a great success, so I believe that we will soon hold the WBA-IBA officials’ seminar to improve the level of judges and referees. Without a doubt, together we are stronger, and we contribute more to boxing.’

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Media contacts:

Elena Sobol, Head of Communications and PR, International Boxing Association: elena.sobol@iba.sport

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