Professional boxing will return to Cuba on August 27 after more than 60 years of absence, on the occasion of the Night of Champions organized by the International Boxing Federation (IBA), in which four Cuban Olympic champions will participate, its promoters announced Tuesday.
Six fights will be offered in Havana next Tuesday by the sulphurous organization, banned by the International Olympic Committee and at the heart of the controversy during the Paris Olympics over the gender of the Algerian Olympic champions Imane Khelif and Taiwanese Lin Yu-ting.
“We are sure that this will be an event that will remain in the history of Cuba and in the history of world boxing, because in the six fights there will be four Cuban Olympic champions,” said Russian Kirill Shchekutyev, promoter of the IBA, at a presentation press conference on Tuesday.
Cuban stars Julio Cesar La Cruz (92 kg) and Arlen Lopez (80 kg), crowned champions at the Rio and Tokyo Games, will face Uzbek Madiyar Saydrakhimov and Belarusian Aliaxei Alfiorau respectively for the IBA titles in their categories.
Erislandy Alvarez (63.5 kg), recently crowned at the Paris Olympics against the Frenchman Sofiane Oumiha, will also be on the bill this evening. As will Roniel Iglesias (63.5 kg), 2012 and 2020 Olympic champion.
“Prizes of up to $120,000 will be awarded during the fights, four of which will be six-round fights and the last two will be ten-round fights. In the last two fights, the title of IBA world champion will be at stake,” Shchekutyev said.
IBA President Umar Kremlev will be present at the event, Shchekutyev confirmed. The Russian has been heading the organization, which is largely funded by Russian gas giant Gazprom, since 2020.
“In the 1950s there were professional fights in Cuba, but in this form it will be the first time,” said the president of the Cuban Boxing Federation, Alberto Puig.
The communist regime abolished professional sports in 1961 and partially reinstated them in 2013, but until now no professional fights had taken place on the island. Since 2022, Cuban boxers have begun to participate in professional fights outside the country.
The organiser of this Night of Champions, the IBA, has been in conflict with the International Olympic Committee since the IOC in 2019 withdrew its right to organise Olympic boxing tournaments due to issues of corruption, refereeing and governance.
During the Paris Olympics, the controversy over the gender of Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting reignited the war between the two bodies. The IBA had excluded the two boxers from the World Championships in March 2023 on the grounds, according to it, that they had failed a test intended to establish their gender.