By Chris Williams: Unbeaten boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) will have his WBA/WBC 147 welterweight titles up for grabs for his fight this Saturday against Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KOs), but not his WBA/WBC junior middleweight titles, according to Fighthype.com.
There was talk of Mawyeather having both his 147 and 154 pound titles on the line for the Maidana fight so that all the titles could be defended at the same time, but Mayweather didn’t like the idea of defending his 154 pound titles in that manner.
That’s a respected move by Mayweather not to defend all his titles at once even though he could if he wanted to. By choosing not to defend his 154 pound titles against Maidana along with his 147 pound belts, Mayweather is showing respect for the contenders in the junior middleweight division because he could easily defend both at the same time since the sanctioning bodies have already given their approval.
There are so good opponents at 154 that Mayweather could in theory fight after the Maidana fight. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is ranked #2 WBA, and he’s someone that Mayweather could elect to fight again if he chooses to. We saw how huge their fight was last September with 2.2 million boxing fans purchasing the fight on Showtime pay-per-view. At #3 WBA, former IBF welterweight champion Joshua Clottey is always an option for Mayweather.
Clottey is coming off of one of the biggest wins of his career in beating Anthony Mundine last April in a huge upset. Clottey had kind of disappeared from taking on paper names after his loss to Manny Pacquiao in 2010. #5 WBA is Sergey Rabchenko. He’s like another Canelo with his punching power and his aggression.
Image-wise, it looks better for Mayweather not to be defending his 154 pound titles at the same time as his 147 pound belts against Maidana, because if Mayweather were to do that it would give his critics something to go after and take a free shot at him.
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