Holtz Children Hospital, Miami, Fl, USA
And now, my Christmas gift to you all, an interview with the “Champion of Big Champions Supporting Little Champions”, our WBC President, Jose Sulaiman.
Jill: What is your life outside of boxing?
Jose: My career is business administration and business law, and I have been involved in family business and my own since 1956 to today, even though I am practically retired since about 15 years ago, when I decided to dedicate my life exclusively to my “hobby” of the WBC and leave my businesses to my family. The WBC has taken all my life activities. I love art and have devoted my life to read and collect, and I also graduated in a photography school, which has been my most beloved hobby, which I have considerable reduced in time, but of which I published a book, pushed by my children, which was called “my other self” as they wanted me to show one other side of my life. I also like to listen, and I usually do it every day, to light classic music, easy listening music and Mexican boleros, Argentinean tangos and Spanish “paso dobles”. I love sports, and I was a baseball player for 20 years having been selected for the Mexican national team in 1951!! ,,,,,, I am a fan of football and I like to watch it always on TV. I have been a person involved in so many different matters in my life that it would be long to detail. Today, when I am closer to the end, than to my past, I have been deeply involved in developing a new business for live sports and entertainment in high Definition, which has taken more than my last five years of full dedication
Jill: What are your goals?
Jose: My goals are intimately related to my dreams, because I continue dreaming; I want the WBC to become even more dedicated to safety research and to implement a pension plan for retired boxers, mainly to those who were heroes, but who live today in desperation and only thinking of their brilliant past, who were used and abused; one of the programs also, is to try to get government jobs in all possible countries for them,,,,,, to bring them back from their caves to the limelight again, somehow.
After so many years of so many activities, problems, responsibilities, absolute dedication, and having on my back so many responsibilities on all fronts of boxing, of continuous traveling all over the world, I want to take some time to find the right way for me for a more relaxed period for my future;
To come back and find whatever makes me happy, to end my life in the best possible way-
Jill: If you weren’t involved in boxing, what do you think you would’ve done?
Jose: Boxing has been my life since I was a child; I was a “botana” fighter hiding it from my parents, but retired when I was only about 16 years old with a broken jaw and nose; I sincerely believe that I was born to be what I am today; I became the secretary of the boxing commission of Ciudad Valles in Mexico, when I was about 18 years old and president of the Ciudad Victoria boxing Commission when I was 25 only years old. I was an old young man, just as I feel today like being an old young man.
However, I have been all my life a business man involved in my family businesses; they had the first clothing factory in the northern Mexico since the year 1921, having been pilgrims from Lebanon and Syria; we have always continued being in the business field, their children and our children doing the same. I have had factories of shoes for ladies and children; department stores and wholesale stores; we have also had cattle ranches and agriculture …etc. Etc. So it was boxing which drove me partially away from our business, even when I still do my work as a counselor and member of the board of administration of our business.
Jill: Do you have a great moment you’d like to share?
Jose: I have 3 that stand over all others : being the first one when his Holiness John Paul II received me in his office at the Vatican ; when the United Nations in New York presented to me a recognition for my leadership against apartheid, and the 3d.,,, which made me cry, when my home town county government named the most important boulevard after my name : “José Sulaimán” Boulevard , with the attendance to the ceremony of so many of my friends, with who I lived my life and learned so much from, until the year of 1963 that I left my home town to move to Mexico City-
Jill: Is their someone special who inspired you?
Jose: My father, by far, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, also John F Kennedy and Nelson Mandela.
![DON_JOSE_Y_MORO[1]](http://suljosblog.com/wbccares/files/DON_JOSE_Y_MORO11-249x300.jpg "DON_JOSE_Y_MORO[1]")
Jill: What would you say is your greatest accomplishment?
Jose: My WBC having changed boxing from a savage legalized sport into one more humanized, compassionate and as safe as never before in history.
Jill: In retrospect, is there something you would have done differently?
Jose: I would say that if life would send me back to when I started, I wouldn’t change one single minute; my tears have made my smiles happier ; my mistakes have made learn to struggle not to commit them again; my moments of sadness have made me feel satisfaction and happiness much more; having met so many poor people , so much starving, so many limitations, abuse of others, discrimination, poverty, that all of that have made stronger in my beliefs that a human being’s most important responsibility in life is nothing more to devote our lives for the service of others, specially the most needed.
Jill: If you could change one thing about boxing? Jose: About boxing,,,,,,,, to be able to implement anti discrimination rules; to eliminate favoritisms and monopolies that leave so many boxers, promoters, and boxing people helpless; to eliminate from some boxing commissioners the arrogance and abuse of power that some have, and change it into boxing knowledge, commitment and impartiality; to implement mandatory profession studies for all boxers, so that when they retire they will not go back to their infancy of poverty.
Jill: About the world?
Jose: About the world,,,,,,,, to commit all the countries in the world for a strong unity and understanding to fight against contamination, to have every person in humanity plant at least one tree, to clean all rivers and oceans ; also to struggle for peace,,,,, to stop the blood running over so many streets of the world ,,,,,,, to have the word of Jesus Christ cover the hearts of human beings to have the wealthy help the poor and to bury the mental attitudes of criminals for everlasting peace in the world.
Jill: How would you like to be remembered?
Jose: Simply as a good man, of one who lived to be of service to others.
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April 22nd, 2010 at 12:00 am