The city of Astana in Kazakhstan today became the first of the 12 World Series of Boxing franchisees to launch its team name and team logo.

The Astana Arlans' Commercial Manager, Mr Serik Kassymov, while unveiling the logo explained the symbolic nature of the logo, "The Arlan is the alpha wolf and in our culture this is a very noble predator that is widely respected, we chose this as our logo to reflect both the aggressive nature of the sport but also the fact that boxing is known as the 'noble art'," he said. "We added the boxing gloves to clearly distinguish our sport and the framework in gold - also a typical colour of our country - with a view to making the logo work as a champion's belt as well."

In its campaign that is revolutionizing the world’s boxing format the WSB will be conducting the first-ever “World Series of Boxing” - International Boxer Draft.

The draft amongst the 12 WSB franchises for the world’s top 24 Olympic Boxers will be held in London by public auction on the 28 & 29 of June and each franchise will at have least three International boxers for their boxing team which will consist of ten boxers.

The individual champions of the new “World Series of Boxing” will also obtain a quota place for the London 2012 Olympic Games."