Ricardo Sandoval Crowned WBC World Champion by President Mauricio Sulaimán

The new WBC flyweight world champion, Ricardo Sandoval, was honored at Martes de Café.

Sandoval captured the WBC flyweight world title by defeating  Japanese star Kenshiro Teraji via SD in Yokohama this July. With this victory, the California fighter reached the top of his division and fulfilled one of his greatest dreams.

A video highlighting his career was also presented.

Mauricio Sulaimán expressed:

“It is a great honor for me to have our champion here. We are so proud to welcome you and present your world championship belt. I want to close this celebration of Ricardo Sandoval by asking the best of the smaller divisions, Humberto ‘Chiquita’ González, and vice versa, to acknowledge each other.”

Speaking about the belt presented to Sandoval’s trainer, Sulaimán explained:

“This is an award created by my father for trainers. The fighter is the one who takes the belt, but you represent so much.”

Sandoval shared his gratitude:

“Thank you for the invitation, it is very special to be here. This work has taken many years. I thank you Golden Boy for letting me fight for my dreams, my manager for always looking out for me, and my trainer, who has been with me from the very beginning—we’ve been together for 16 years, everything I know is thanks to him. I also thank my parents for giving me the chance to be in this sport, they always supported me, and it’s an honor to bring them this belt. Now we are two-time world champions. This has been years of hard work, and I always had faith.”

His trainer added:

“Ricardo always wanted to be WBC champion. When he found out the WBC also had a belt for trainers, he told me we had to go after both of those belts.”