NABF 54th Convention next week

The 54th Annual NABF Convention will be held August 22-25 at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio River Walk in Texas.

The North American Boxing Federation is an affiliate organization of the World Boxing Council that sanctions professional boxing championships for Canada, the United States and Mexico.

The NABF came into being in 1968 under the leadership of Jim Deskin of Nevada and Jose Sulaiman of Mexico, assisted by Bob Turley of California. The first NABF affiliates were California, Mexico, and Nevada, followed shortly by Oregon and Washington. Soon after, Hawaii, Utah, Arizona, Florida,

Colorado, Rhode Island, and Texas also became affiliated. Early NABF leaders (in addition to the three men mentioned above) included Professor Ramon Velazquez, the WBC president at the time, Bill Houston, the chairman of the California Commission during this period, and Jackie Fields, a former world champion and the chairman of the Nevada Athletic Commission at the time.

Also prominent NABF executives during this era were Bobby Lee (Hawaii), Jimmy Rondeau (Washington), George Yerkovitch (Oregon), and Roy Tennyson (Executive Director of the California Commission). The first NABF championship fight was Leotis Martin’s ninth-round knockout of Sonny Liston on June 12, 1969.

Some of the more notable NABF champions in history include Muhammad Ali, Juan Antonio Aguirre, Alicia Ashley, Mike Ayala, Paulie Ayala, Marco Antonio Barrera, Lucien Bute, Hector Camacho, Jesus Chavez, Melchor Cob Castro, Donald Curry, Chad Dawson, Nonito Donaire, Roberto Garcia, Robert Guerrero, George Foreman, Vernon Forrest, Greg Haugen, Thomas Hearns, Mariana Juarez, Juan LaPorte, Jesse James Leija, “Sugar” Ray Leonard, Terry Norris, Ken Norton, Michael Nunn, Kelly Pavlik, Samuel Peter, Rafael Ruelas, Antonio Tarver, Ana Maria Torres, Pernell Whittaker, Ronald “Winky” Wright, Daniel Zaragoza, among others.

Below you will find the hotel reservation link: https://www.hyatt.com/en-US/group-booking/SATGH/G-BOX4