By Jim Dower: According to Dan Rafael of ESPN, WBC/WBO middleweight champion Sergio Martinez has been stripped of his WBO title by the World Boxing Organization of his middleweight title.
Apparently, the WBO wanted Martinez to make a decision whether he was going to stay at middleweight and defend the WBO title or move back down and defend his WBC junior middleweight title.
They gave Martinez a short amount of time to make a decision about which division he would fight in after he defeated the previous WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik by a 12 round unanimous decision on April 17th. Martinez, however, still hadn’t made a decision and this led to the WBO taking away the title. The WBC hasn’t made a similar move to push Martinez about making a decision.
It may not matter all that much for Martinez, as just being the WBC middleweight champion should be more than enough. He’s already recognized by the knowledgeable boxing fans to be the number #1 middleweight in the division and the loss of the WBO title is pretty much meaningless. Martinez is clearly the fighter to shoot for in the middleweight division, with or without the WBO title. Martinez is hoping to get a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. if Floyd’s proposed fight with Manny Pacquiao doesn’t take place.
It’ll be interesting to see who emerges as the WBO middleweight title now. The top three contenders Dmitry Piroq, Gennady Golovkin and Hassan N’Dam N’Jikams are all good fighters. There’s also Daniel Jacobs ranked number #6. Those are all quality fighters.
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