World Boxing Convention 2013 event in Cardiff is scrapped

A boxing convention which was set to bring world champions and a possible world title bout to Cardiff next year has been cancelled.  The week-long WBC World Boxing Convention was expected to bring 1,000 delegates – including stars of the sport like Mike Tyson and Oscar De La Hoya – to Cardiff in 2013.  But Cardiff’s status as host was revealed to have been dramatically revoked with the ex-deputy leader of the council claiming the new administration had “shown no interest” in putting the event on.  The council itself said the WBC had “pulled out” with cabinet member for sport, leisure and culture Huw Thomas adding they would not use public cash to “rub shoulders with the rich and not so famous.”  Cardiff had secured the event in December after a bidding process in which it beat the likes of Dubai and Croatia.  As part of the process, then-deputy leader and Plaid councillor Neil McEvoy has led a delegation to Las Vegas with Cardiff and Co’s Richard Thomas and former boxing great John H Stracey to secure the event.  But in a letter sent to the Convention Committee in Cardiff by WBC president Jose Sulaiman, seen by the Echo,  the organisation said they had to “respectfully decline the approval to hold there the WBC Convention of 2013”.  The event was expected to have brought £4m to Cardiff – with a possible money-spinning world-title fight at the Millennium Stadium or Cardiff City Stadium to coincide with the annual convention.  Yesterday, a disappointed Coun McEvoy – who also travelled to Cancun, Mexico, as part of his efforts to woo the WBC – lambasted the Labour-led council, elected 10 weeks ago, for not backing the event.