Boxcino returns in 2024 with a bang
It’s been a proven franchise brand that has been gold for generating exposure for fighters in need of exposure. RingTV.com has learned that Artie Pelullo and Egis Klimas will be reviving the Boxcino tournament brand again in 2024. Pelullo, a Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame inductee, and Klimas, a three-time BWAA Manager of the Year winner, are putting together a Boxcino super tournament that would include two weight classes fighting over six continents.
The winner of the Super Boxcino tournament will receive a $1-million purse with the ultimate goal being a world title fight.
The plan is for the six tournament winners to fight in the Boxcino Championship Tournament. The goal is to attract fighters on the lip of title contention. The quarterfinal and semifinal rounds will be six-round bouts, then graduate to seven-round fights in the finals. The tournament is slated to begin in the spring of 2024 and scheduled to conclude in the fall of 2024. Where the finals will be held are yet to be determined.
The Boxcino tournaments have had a strong history of producing world titlists and contenders. The fighter that first comes to mind is former Brazilian star Acelino “Popo” Freitas, who won the first Boxcino Tournament in 1997, and he went on to become a four-time world titlist. Freitas went on to fight in more than 11 world championship bouts around the world and in some of the largest clashes in Latin American fight history, holding significant championship wins over world-class fighters, such as Joel Casamayor, Daniel Attah, Juan Ramirez, Jorge Barrios, Artur Grigorian, and Zahir Raheem.
Other fighters who of note who have emerged from Boxcino were middleweight title challenger Willie Monroe Jr., who won the 2014 Boxcino middleweight tournament, and challenged Gennadiy Golovkin for the WBA and WBC middleweight titles, lightweight title challenger Petr Petrov, a 2014 Boxcino tournament winner who fought WBO lightweight beltholder Terry Flanagan in 2017, heavyweight Andrey Fedosov, a 2015 Boxcino winner who is hoping to continue his career after it was interrupted by an injury, and junior middleweight John Thompson, whose the 2015 Boxcino success led to an appearance on the boxing reality show The Contender.
Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter who has been working for Ring Magazine/RingTV.com since October 1997 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
Follow @JSantoliquito
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