Floyd Mayweather Jr. Stripped of WBO Welterweight Title
Pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather, Jr. has been stripped of his World Boxing Organization Welterweight title by WBO Monday. The announcement came after Mayweather failed to comply with the WBO's rules regarding titles.
According to a report in ESPN, Mayweather got the world welterweight title when he won via unanimous decision over Manny Pacquiao last May 2 in Las Vegas, in a boxing fight that went down in boxing history as the highest-earning fight that broke all financial records.
WBO made the decision to strip Mayweather of his title after he failed to pay a sanctioning fee of $200,000 for the fight by the July 3 deadline.
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"The WBO world championship committee is allowed no other alternative but to cease to recognize Mr. Floyd Mayweather Jr. as the WBO welterweight champion of the world and vacate his title for failing to comply with our WBO regulations of world championship contests," the organization stated.
Mayweather holds three titles from the three boxing associations or organizations and for different weight classes. According to the ESPN report, it is against the rules of any sanctioning organization for boxers to "hold world titles in multiple weight classes." WBO gave Mayweather two months to decide which weight class he wants to continue to hold the title in.
After the July 3 deadline, WBO's championship committee voted to outstrip the boxer of his title. The Mayweather camp was not pleased with the ruling. WBO has given them 10 days to appeal the ruling.
Mayweather had made earlier pronouncements after his fight with Pacquiao that he planned to "vacate all his titles to give younger fighters a chance to realize their dreams of winning belts." After he said this, WBO sanctioned the June 27 fight between Timothy Bradley Jr. and Jessie Vargas for the vacant welterweight title. Mayweather expressed his objections to this, so the WBO informed him that in order for him to keep the title, he has to pay the sanctioning fee and vacate his junior middleweight belts.
