HAMBURG, Germany – Mauricio Sulaiman and Turki Alalshikh have announced the WBC Grand Prix of boxing.
The announcement came at the 62nd annual World Boxing Council Convention on Monday.
The Grand Prix will be a World Cup of the sport, a tournament featuring 128 prospects across four weight classes, and was a dream of Mauricio’s late father, Jose, the former WBC head.
The entrants will be no older than 26 and have no more than 10 fights to their name. The tournament will start in February and feature quarterfinals and semifinals over eight rounds, with the 10-round finals to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The weight classes contested will be featherweight, junior welterweight, middleweight and heavyweight.
Earlier in the evening, Alalshikh was named the WBC’s Man of the Year, an award previously won by Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela and Pope Francis.
Alalshikh addressed the audience and urged Wladimir Klitschko, the former heavyweight champion, to come out of retirement to consider a fight with either the winner of the Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury bout on December 21, or the February 22 contest between IBF titleholder Daniel Dubois and Joseph Parker.
