Floyd Mayweather Jr. has lost his WBO welterweight title. Mayweather was supposed to pay a $200,000 sanctioning fee (less than 0.001 percent of what he earned from the Fight of the Century vs. Manny Pacquiao) by the 4:30 PM ET deadline last week. He didn’t meet the mark and the WBO responded.
“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,” it wrote this week. The failure to not pay the relatively small fee (by Mayweather’s standards) is difficult to understand. And that wasn’t his only infraction. It’s against WBO rules for one fighter to hold belts in two weight divisions (Mayweather also holds title belts from the WBA and WBC at light middleweight). Most fighters are given about 10 days to decide which championship to retain — Mayweather was given two months.
“Despite affording Mr. Mayweather Jr. the courtesy of an extension to advise us of his position within the WBO Welterweight Division and to vacate the two 154-pound world titles he holds, the WBO World Championship Committee received no response from him or his legal representatives on this matter.” says the WBO.
ESPN reports some biting words from Mayweather’s camp, calling the ruling a “complete disgrace.”
“Floyd will decide what, or if any, actions he will take. But in the meantime he’s enjoying a couple of hundred million he made from his last outing and this has zero impact on anything he does,” Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe told ESPN.com. “Floyd Mayweather has a great deal of respect for each and every organization, as he has always had in his 19-year career, but he will not be dictated to by any organization or person as it relates to his decision making.”
