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53-year-old Demanet grew up in
Oostkamp, Belgium, a short drive
from Bruges (AKA Brugge), the
city where he was born in April
of 1965. His parents ran a
restaurant, and with his father,
grandfather, three uncles and a
cousin all cooks, it would have
been natural had a young
Emmanuel decided to follow in
their footsteps.
That´s not what happened,
though, as he chose a completely
different line of work. After
High-school he got a job in
private security, and stayed in
that occupation for sixteen
years, mainly as head security
officer at a bank.
He put in extra hours working
security at music festivals and
for money transports, something
he describes as a very risky way
to earn a living due to the many
gangs specializing in robbing
money transports in Belgium in
the late eighties and early
nineties. Luckily, he was never
robbed.
Later on, Demanet switched to a
job as a correctional officer.
“Before I had to keep them out,
and now I have to keep them in”,
he says with a laugh. To this
day he is still working as a
guard at the prison in Gent, and
is also involved in the trade
union representing his
colleagues in four prisons in
his area.
Like so many others in this
world, Emmanuel became a boxing
fan, at the age of twelve, due
to the one and only Muhammad
Ali. At sixteen he joined the
Wimme Boxing Club, hoping that
he could be a successful boxer
himself. But...
“After
some time, and some hard
sparring, I discovered that I
was not champion material. And,
since I hate losing, I decided
that competition boxing was not
meant for me.”
In his early twenties Demanet
returned to Wimme B. C. and got
involved as a trainer:
“Achiel
Wimme, the founder and
trainer/manager of the club was
a big inspiration and mentor for
me. He looked like a character
from an old fifties movie, and
made Rocky´s trainer look like a
“Pretty Boy”. But he had so much
knowledge about boxing”.
“Talks
and lessons with (respected and
accomplished Belgian trainer)
Jef Van Driessche were also
mind-opening, and I was always a
fan of the Brendan Ingle school
of boxing. But unfortunately I
never had the honor of meeting
Ingle in person.”
A few years into his tenure
working with the amateurs,
Demanet decided he would like to
also try his luck at promoting
and managing professional
boxers. Faith would have it that
former Belgian Light Heavyweight
Champion Jose Seys (27-18-6 at
the time) had plans to make a
comeback after three years of
inactivity.
So Demanet arranged a meeting
with the veteran, who had lost a
European title-challenge four
years earlier in 1990, and made
him his first signing. Seys had
four build-up victories under
the guidance of Demanet, before
losing in a challenge for the
Belgian Cruiserweight title to
Dirk Wallyn in 1995.
“The
second boxer I signed was Freddy
Demeaulenarre, who had the heart
of a lion but cut in every fight
and provided me with great
experience as a cutman”,
explains Demanet.
“One
of my favorite memories in
boxing is Freddy fighting on the
undercard of the Dariusz
Michalczewski vs. Graciano
Rocchigiani World Light
Heavyweight title fight, on an
open-air show at the
Wilhelm-Koch stadium in Hamburg
in 1996.”
During
a twenty-two year run at Wimme
B. C., Demanet took on every
role under the sun at the club,
besides working with the
professionals,
before deciding to leave due to
personal reasons. But he was not
done with boxing, at all:
“A
year after I left the club, I
started my third run in boxing.
This time as an official. I
became a judge in Belgium, and
at one point the Belgian Boxing
Board asked me to be a member of
the professional committee, of
which I am now the president.”
Demanet is also President of the
BeNeLux Boxing Union, and Vice
President of the Flemish league
(the Belgian Boxing Board is
divided in three leagues, with
Flemish being one of them), and
he is still very much active as
a judge.
“I
have had, and continue to have,
so many good memories in boxing,
from training amateurs to
managing and promoting
professionals, and now judging
and supervising professional
fights.”
“At
its best boxing is a wonderful
sport, at its worst its a
horrible, horrible thing. I have
met many lovely, honest people,
but also some who should be
behind bars. Its a world filled
with colorful characters, to say
the least.”
A chance meeting with World
Boxing Federation Executive
director Olaf Schroeder in
Belgium let to Demanet
eventually joining the WBF as
its BeNeLux representative, and
later as a member of the
Executive committee.
Demanet is passionate and
engaging when it comes to the
WBF, and boxing in general, and
he is not uncritical. He has his
opinions, and ideas on how he
sees the current standing and
future of the WBF, saying:
“I
would like to see the WBF take
the lead on certain things, such
as 3 minute rounds for womens
fights, instead of them only
boxing 2 minutes per round.”
“The
WBF was one of the trail-blazers
in womens boxing, but then other
organizations saw what they were
missing out on and started
taking over some great WBF
champions. I would like to see
our champions go for unification
fights, instead of renouncing
the WBF title to fight for other
titles.”
“But
the problem is that many board
members of various national
federations are linked closely
to the so-called big four
organizations, and therefore
block the smaller
organizations”.
“However,
we have to keep up the good
work, and hope for a big break
with a big name. Getting major
promoters on board, and big name
boxers, helped the WBO get
established, at first in Germany
and the UK, and its been the
same with the IBO, to a degree.”
“I
would like to be known as one of
the people who helps the World
Boxing Federation reach yet a
higher level...”
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