Jose Sulaiman, the longtime head of the World Boxing Council who introduced rules to protect boxers, died on Thursday. He was 82.
Sulaiman’s son, Mauricio Sulaiman, said his father died at a hospital in Los Angeles. He had been hospitalized at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center for months for a heart condition.
The Mexico-based WBC confirmed his death.
“He certainly treated all fighters as his sons and daughters, he suffered from their problems and worked every single day of his life to try to make boxing better and safer,” the council said in a statement.
Sulaiman boxed as an amateur and became a manager, trainer, and referee. At 16, he joined a Mexican boxing commission and moved to the WBC in 1968, won a unanimous vote to become president in 1975, and remained in charge ever since.
