By Allan Fox: The World Boxing Organization is widely expected to strip Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) of his WBO 147lb title today due to him failing to give them the $200,000 sanctioning fee that they were asking for in order for him to keep his WBO title. The WBO gave Mayweather until last Friday at 4:30 p.m. ET to pay the sanctioning fee and vacate his WBA/WBC junior middleweight titles, and he did neither of those things.

Mayweather captured the WBO 147lb title with a 12 round unanimous decision victory over champion Manny Pacquiao on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

After the fight, Mayweather said he’d be giving up the WBO title, saying “Other fighters need to get a chance. I’m not greedy. I’m a world champion at two different weight classes right now. It’s time to let other fighters fight for the belts.”

Along the way, Mayweather seemed to have changed his mind about wanting to give up the WBO title, as he complained that he had never been given the WBO title, and he felt it was strange for him to give up a title that he’d never actually received.

Mayweather still has his WBA/WBC welterweight titles, as well as his WBA/WBC junior middleweight straps. What’s unclear is whether the WBO would allow Mayweather to keep the WBO welterweight title if he gave them the $200K they wanted for the sanctioning fee. If he failed to give up his two junior middleweight titles, he wouldn’t be in full compliance with what the WBO was asking of Mayweather in giving up his WBA and WBC junior middleweight titles in addition to paying the $200,000 sanctioning fee.

The fighter that stands to gain from Mayweather being stripped of his WBO title is WBO interim welterweight champion Tim Bradley, who won the interim title last week in defeating light welterweight Jessie Vargas by a 12 round decision. Vargas had been recently been given a No.5 ranking by the WBO despite never having fought at welterweight.

The WBO made it easy for Bradley to win the interim WBO title by sanctioning a fight between him and a light welterweight instead of saying no to the fight and insisting that Bradley face a highly ranked welterweight contender like Shawn Porter, Errol Spence, Amir Khan, Marcos Maidana or Brandon Rios. A fight between Bradley and Rios made the most sense given that Rios was ranked No.3 by the WBO, and higher ranked than Vargas.

It would have been ideal for the WBO to have had Mayweather officially vacate his WBO welterweight title before the Tim Bradley vs. Jessie Vargas fight because it would have meant that the two fighters were facing each other for the full WBO welterweight title rather than just the interim WBO strap. It would have made the fight more interesting than it was, but Mayweather failed to vacate the strap. That left the WBO in the position where they had to put up just the interim WBO title.

Having Bradley as the WBO welterweight title rather than Mayweather will be disappointing to some boxing fans because Bradley isn’t considered to be in the same class as Mayweather in terms of talent, and there are a number of welterweights that would likely beat Bradley if given the chance, such as Khan, Spence, Maidana, Rios, Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia and even light welterweights like Lucas Matthysse and Lamont Peterson.

The WBO is getting a new champion in Bradley, but he’s already perceived as a paper champion by a lot of fans. That’s obviously not good because it makes the WBO look like they don’t have a legitimate champ holding their belt.