World Series of Boxing by Aiba

World Series of Boxing by Aiba

In an interview with SportzPower’s Javed Farooqui, Raja says 2011 has been a year of learning for the federation.we have understood what are our strength and capabilities. It has also been an eye opener from the point of view that with the introduction of World Series of Boxing by Aiba, the old style of boxing has come back into play which is more of  hard punches, body movements. Boxing has become a different game altogether and if we have to be in the reckoning for the Olympics, World Championships etc we have to develop this (old style boxing) part of it so that our boxers are strong who have the courage, endurance and the hitting power. In the past 15-20 years the Aiba has brought so many rules which were more suited for ‘touch-and-go’ or the points system. The actual boxing which the likes of Muhammad Ali played was more of attacking. To bring back the beauty of the game, Aiba has brought back the scoring system. So this has been the biggest learning for us and maybe Aiba will also permit us to conduct the same (Boxing Series) for selection of people and that will help our boxers also they will become much stronger.

Other than that our juniors, youth and women boxers have also done well, four of our boxers have already qualified for the Olympics and there is one more Olympic qualifier coming up for mens' section and subsequently the womens' section. What is emerging is that it is the age of youngsters now like in the mens' section we have Vikas (Krishnan), Devendro (Singh), and now Shiva Thapa, who have done well. Similarly in the womens' section we have young girls who won during the World Championships like this girl called Sarju Bala, who is a Gold medallist in world championship. So in the next two-three months we will know whether the women in the senior section are able to maintain their position or these (Junior) girls will overtake them.