I have always had a great passion for boxing since being a young boy and it was always my ambition to ensure that boxing played a major role in my life.
Nowadays, people often tell me that my life as President of the World Boxing Federation (WBF) is incredible and glamorous. Well, to be quite honest, I wouldn’t want to change anything in my life, but “always incredible and glamorous” – I’m not so sure about that!
Allow me to take you into my life during my last overseas trip two weeks ago.
I was off to one of my favorite destinations, South Korea, where I would meet up with my very good friend Hoosik Choi. It was my eighth visit to Korea and all of them thus far had been outstanding with no problems whatsoever.
Every time things had always gone smoothly and I had always been impressed by the professionalism, punctuality and hospitality of the Korean Boxing Association (KBA) and the Korean people in general.
This latest trip, I had assumed, would be no different. As I left my home in Cape Town on the Wednesday afternoon, I had left my family with winter flu, and was lucky enough not to have caught any bugs – or so I thought.
An overbooked ten-hour flight to Dubai, a quick coke in the lounge, and then the next nine-hour flight to Seoul. Though I arrived safely, of course for some reason my luggage had gone missing, but luckily appeared after some inquiries. As usual I was collected on time and taken to the hotel close to Seoul.
It was now 20.00 h in the evening in Korea (South African time was 13.00 h) and I would be collected the next morning at 10.00 h for the weigh-in. Of course my body was telling me it wasn’t time to sleep so I proceeded to work through the night.
Finally, I felt ready to have a few hours sleep, only to realize that it was morning here and that I was going to be collected in about an hour! I had bought new shoes in Cape Town, opened the box to find to my horror that both shoes were left footed!
The only other shoes I had with me were my black Nike running shoes which I thus had to use at the weigh-in. Luckily, sitting at the table there was no visibility of my “smart” footwear.
I had told Hoosik that I needed to buy shoes urgently before the fight, and he very kindly told me not to worry and that he had a spare pair which would fit me. Often the phrase “size counts” is used and in this case, my size 7 foot differed greatly from Hoosik’s size – 13 foot!
Nevertheless, I used the spare pair and survived the evening. I have subsequently returned to the shop in Cape Town where I purchased the shoes, and have been given a new pair (left and right!) together with a massive apology.
Fight night went well, with an excellent fight and again superbly organized by the KBA under the chairmanship of Jung Pyo Kim, our WBF Asia-Pacific Chairman.
Time to go home and as fate would have it, the flu that had been prevalent in my family had now been handed down to me. Sore throat, unable to swallow, blocked ears and a running nose. I wondered whether they would actually allow me to fly but they did and again I survived to tell the story.
I arrived back in Cape Town after a collective 23 hours in the air. Time to slow down, I thought, and maybe spend a few days in bed recuperating. Not to be. One day later I was told that I would be on a plane in 24 hours time to Johannesburg for a WBF intercontinental title fight.
All of my trips to foreign countries have featured adventures, mostly good but occasionally horrific and perhaps one future column will tell the story of me standing in front of a plane on Nairobi airport refusing to allow a plane to leave until they brought me the WBF belt they had confiscated. But that’s for another time.
Boxing has been an incredible journey for me full of stories and full of some of the most fantastic people in the world. I am lucky to wake up every day and know that unlike many people I am in a job which is my passion.
Until next time, keep boxing.
Howard Goldberg
PRESIDENT: World Boxing Federation
