Cuba opens to professional boxing

Havana, April 5 (RHC)--Cuban boxers will be able to participate in professional competitions for the first time since 1962, Cuban Boxing Federation president Alberto Puig announced Monday.

"For three and a half years we have been working on a contract that really corresponds to the philosophy of Cuban sport, in the case of the insertion of our boxers into professional boxing," Puig said in The Round Table TV program.

The Federation signed a representation contract with the Mexican company Golden Ring to have the first bouts in Mexico in May.

Olympic champions Julio Cesar La Cruz, Arlen Lopez, Roniel Iglesias, and the sensation of the moment, Andy Cruz, will make their debut in professional boxing as part of the Domadores de Cuba team next May, said the executive.

"It is a privilege to have reached this historic agreement with the Cuban sports authorities, which marks a before and after in boxing," Gerardo Saldivar, president of Golden Ring Promotions, stressed in a statement.

In the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, several Cubans faced rented boxers and already had 22 victories against professionals without any defeat to gain experience, quality, and technique.

According to the national boxing commissioner, the reduction from eight to seven divisions for the men's sector in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will impose an additional demand on the plans of pugilism in Cuba.

He said that a country like Cuba, traditionally represented by athletes with medal options in most categories, eliminating a representative forces to select better and be more efficient in advance.

The new initiative is part of the development strategy of boxing on the island to strengthen the massiveness and follow up the talents from the base, he added.