Floyd Mayweather made a lot of money off his last fight with Manny Pacquiao and earned a WBO welterweight title. Alas, that WBO welterweight title came with a price–a $200,000 sanction fee to be exact–which Money Mayweather refused to pay.
In turn, the World Boxing Organization has stripped the undefeated champion of his belt.
Reports USA TODAY:
The WBO stripped Floyd Mayweather of his welterweight title for failure to comply with rules, the organization announced on Monday. After Mayweather won the WBO title from Manny Pacquiao in May, he failed to pay the $200,000 sanctioning fee and vacate his titles at WBC/WBA titles at junior middleweight. The WBO said he would keep his title if he honored both requests.
He didn’t and now Timothy Bradley will become the WBO welterweight champion (under very controversial circumstances) following his fight against Jessie Vargas June 27. It’s all pretty ridiculous.
The WBO statement reads:
“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.”
Timothy Bradley will now own the WBO welterweight title.
The kicker is that Mayweather had already stated that he planned to relinquish the title so paying the WBO to keep it would be a futile decision.
Mayweather Promotions CEO Leondard Ellerbee recently told ESPN, “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.”
In other words, that was the proverbial middle finger to the WBO.
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