Floyd Mayweather was stripped of the WBO welterweight title on Monday after 'failing to comply with WBO regulations'. Mayweather claimed the title after defeating Manny Pacquiao in a world record breaking bout in May, however, his desire to hold on to every title available to him has cost him one of those titles.
The various boxing organisations contend that you can only hold titles in one weight division. As things stand, Mayweather holds titles in both welterweight and junior middleweight and that (should) mean that he needs to pick one and continue in that division, foregoing the titles in the other.
However, so far, Mayweather has decided to hold on to all his titles and the WBC and WBA have allowed that to happen. Mayweather then defeated Pacquiao in May and also claimed his WBO crown, an organisation that wasn't quite so accommodating.
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.
Leonard Ellerbe, Mayweather Promotions CEO, gave ESPN the reaction from the Mayweather camp to that news. It's fair to say the pound for pound king is not too bothered.
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.
Mayweather has two to file an appeal to the WBO's decision but judging by that quote we'd suggest it isn't too high on his list of priorities.
