Pound-for-pound king and “Fighter of the Decade” Manny Pacquiao has been invited as a guest at the World Boxing Council “Night of Champions” which will be held in Cardiff, Wales from July 29-31 this year.
The event will be the second WBC Night of Champions with the first having taken place in Cancun, Mexico in support of the local area of Cancun in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina that tore through the picturesque tourist resort city in 2006.
In a letter to Pacquiao, former world welterweight champion John Stracey who is a member of the Executive Committee hosting the event said the second WBC Night of Champions is all about supporting charitable legacy projects within Wales. He said they will be raising funds for the Princes Trust, the WBC cares charity and a legacy project in Wales entitled Sporting Chances. Sporting Chances is aimed at improving the lives of the Welsh disadvantaged youth. Stracey told Pacquiao “your support would inspire these people”.
Also enclosed was a document which outlined in more detail the itinerary of events to take place over the three days. In brief, there will be an awards ceremony, charity sports day, gala dinners, Great Britain versus rest of world road to the Olympics tournament and the world film premiere of ‘Risen’ the story of Welsh boxer Howard Winstone. The letter stated “we should be delighted if you could attend this prestigious event.”
The invitation was emailed by Stracey who attended the last WBC Convention in Manila to his good friend, internationally respected referee Bruce McTavish who requested us to kindly forward the invitation letter to Pacquiao which we did, forwarding the document to Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz.
Koncz’ initial reaction was “I don’t see any problem.”
Stracey who will turn 50 on September 22 won the WBC world title with a stunning 6th round TKO over Cuban great Jose Napoles in a scheduled 15 round bout in Mexico City on December 6, 1975. Stracey was dropped in the first round but fought back to cut Napoles severely forcing referee Octavio Meyrem to c all a halt at 2:30 of the sixth round.
Source: philboxing.com
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