Convention opens in Reno this week!

The North American Boxing Federation will begin its annual convention in Reno, Nevada on Wednesday.  On Saturday, the regional sanctioning body will hold its elections, and a familiar boxing name will be on the ballot.  Joe Dwyer, the former championship chairman of the IBF, will be running for the position of American Vice President. According to the NABF website, that position is currently held by Sam Macias.  Dwyer, a long-time New York City police officer, has been in boxing since the 1950s when he lost an amateur bout to Joey Archer, best known for beating a way-past-his-prime Sugar Ray Robinson. Dwyer was only with the IBF about three years, but during that time, he was one of the leading proponents of elimination bouts, a practice that has become popular with all of the major organizations. While eliminators have not solved all of the sanctioning bodies' problems, they have given more boxers a chance to decide their future in the ring.  Dwyer was also one of the very few sanctioning body executives who regularly spoke with the press and answered the tough questions that most of his peers avoided. Recently, Dwyer has served as judge, mostly in New York and Connecticut. He is running on a platform of repairing the alliance between the NABF and WBC, a move Dwyer believes would make the NABF title more desirable as a stepping stone to a world title opportunity.