Mayweather stripped of WBO welterweight title

The WBO has stripped pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather of his welterweight world title for his failure to comply with the organization’s rules.

Mayweather claimed the WBO welterweight title when he outpointed Manny Pacquiao on May 2nd in a 147-pound unification fight that shattered all financial records for a boxing match, including total gross, pay-per-view subscriptions, closed circuit revenue, live gate, foreign television sales and sponsorships.

Mayweather, who holds two other alphabet welterweight world titles, let come and go the 4:30pm Friday deadline by which he had to pay a $200,000 sanctioning fee from the May 2nd fight, for which he earned more than $220 million, and vacate the two junior middleweight titles he also holds.

It is against sanctioning organization rules for boxers to hold world titles in multiple weight classes.

The WBC and WBA had been breaking their own rules by allowing Mayweather to hold their titles, but the WBO upheld its rules.

Typically, the WBO will allow a fighter 10 days to decide which weight class he wants to continue to hold the title in, if he wins one in another weight division.

The WBO gave Mayweather major leeway - two months.

Once the Friday deadline expired, the WBO sent the issue to its championship committee, which voted today to strip Mayweather of the belt for not complying with either request.

After Mayweather defeated Pacquiao to unify three of the four major welterweight world titles, he spoke at length at the postfight news conference about how he planned to vacate all his titles in order to give younger fighters the chance to realize their dreams of winning belts.

Source: espn