Sanctioning bodies let Mayweather keep his titles

By Boxing News - 09/18/2015 - Comments

Floyd MayweatherBy Chris Williams: In a sign that Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26 KOs) will definitely coming back next year to resume his pro career, he’s not vacated any of his title belts at this time, and the sanctioning bodies are letting him keep his titles rather than stripping them from him.

The sanctioning bodies aren’t making a move on Mayweather’s titles at 147 and 154, according to Dan Rafael. Mayweather currently holds the WBA and WBC title at welterweight, and WBA and WBC titles at junior middleweight.

Mayweather had his WBO title at 147 stripped from him by the World Boxing Organization recently when he failed to pay a large sanctioning fee and give up his junior middleweight title, as requested of him as part of the condition for him to keep the WBO strap after he whipped Manny Pacquiao on May 2nd.

Mayweather had said after his fight with Andre Berto last Saturday night that he was going to be vacating his titles so that the “young lions” could go after the belts to further careers in the sport. But here we are on Friday and Mayweather hasn’t vacated his titles.

It’s not surprising that the WBA and WBC haven’t stripped Mayweather of his 147 and 154lb titles. It’s better to have a famous fighter like Mayweather as their champion than a lesser name fighter. Mayweather is capable of getting huge purses to pay the sanctioning fees. It’s just an arguably better deal for Mayweather to hold those belts than a lesser name fighter that doesn’t have the same cache as him.

The sanctioning bodies clearly must believe that Mayweather is going to come back next year to resume his career, because if they truly believed he was retiring for good, they would have stripped him of his titles a long time ago.

The WBC will be meeting on November 1st through 7th in China to make a decision what to do about Mayweather’s 147 and 154 titles with their organization, but you can bet that they’ll likely let Mayweather keep those titles if they see him not vacating the titles. They’ll want to hold on until they’re absolutely certain that Mayweather is retiring before taking the titles from him and letting other fighters like Amir Khan, Danny Garcia, Jermell Charlo and Vanes Martirosyan fight for the vacant WBC 147 and 154 belts. Those are fine names for carry the World Boxing Council’s titles, but come on, none of them have the kind of cache that Mayweather has.

Garcia would likely beat Khan again to win the WBC welterweight title, and Charlo could squeak by over Martirosyan again in a rematch. Those guys don’t have the name that Mayweather possesses.

The WBA and WBC certainly could strip Mayweather, but they’d be shooting themselves in the foot by doing so. I don’t think they’re going to strip Mayweather just so that they have lesser fighters fighting over their titles. If Danny Garcia wins the WBC 147lb title, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him take really soft voluntary defenses against Rod Salka or Paulie Malignaggi types over and over again for as long as he holds the WBC title.



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