The organizer of the infamous Sunwing party plane says he’s lined up a boxing match with Montreal mayoral candidate Balarama Holness.
Last week, James William Awad, the CEO of community organization TripleOne, challenged Canada’s transport minister to a fight after announcing a dozen more fines retroactive to the December flight from Montreal to Cancun that resulted in a full-scale media frenzy.
William Awad tells Daily Hive that Holness, who’s a former Montreal Alouette CFL player, “called him out on social media for an MMA fight.”
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William Awad says Holness is adamant about wanting to fight MMA style but the TripleOne CEO says that mixed martial arts is “not good for our images” and wants to set up a charity boxing match instead.
William Awad, who’s also recording his own music album, says that MMA is “dangerous” and isn’t good for businessmen or politicians.
we started pic.twitter.com/wqa0UoN0m8
— senior (@111jameswilliam) April 2, 2022
Over the weekend, William Awad shared a photo of himself on Twitter accompanied by Los Angeles boxing coach Freddie Roach of the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood — where former professional boxer Manny Pacquiao trained for 16 years under Roach.
“Right now, I’m installing a boxing gym on one of my properties and taking this sport very seriously,” William Awad tells Daily Hive. “If [Holness is] serious about it, it could happen. I’m training every day and I’m 100% in on it.”
William Awad says he’s requesting that all proceeds from ticket sales with his match against Holness go to charity. “If he loses, he has to give $50,000 to the charity of my choice. Regardless if I win or lose,” he continued, “I’ll be donating personally $50,000 to charity after this fight.”
The CEO says he started boxing in Los Angeles but will be continuing his training in Montreal with “the best of the best,” saying he can’t disclose the names of his trainers.
According to William Awad, the fight with Holness will happen in Montreal in September or October.
He says he picked up boxing as a personal goal, to train, to get in shape, and for charity. He also called out Holness in saying it “would be fun to box a politician that doesn’t respect people.”
-7 am boxing / cardio (2 hours)
-9 am tripleone dev (10 hours)
-7 pm music production training (1 hour)
-8 pm music recording / studio (3 hours)What else
— senior (@111jameswilliam) April 2, 2022
A recap of this winter’s “Sunwing party plane” fiasco
On December 30, videos of a party on a privately chartered flight full of Quebec social media influencers and actors went viral. The airline that hosted the flight, Sunwing, declined the partygoers’ return flight out of Cancun a few days later, citing a breach in their contract. Passengers were also recorded breaking several airline codes, including dancing in aisles, not wearing masks, drinking alcohol, and smoking e-cigarettes.
At the time, Canada’s Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said certain behaviours on the flight were “unacceptable,” justifying why Transport Canada “took immediate action.”
“Aviation rules must be respected by everyone, for the sake of everyone’s safety,” Alghabra said at the time. “Transport Canada will continue to investigate and issue all necessary penalties.”
Since then, 24 infractions have been handed out to passengers of the infamous flight with fines ranging “up to $5,000.”
After the videos circulated, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the in-flight party was a “slap in the face” to Canadians to see people “putting themselves, putting their fellow citizens, putting airline workers at risk by being completely irresponsible.”
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