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Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been officially stripped of his welterweight title by The World Boxing Organization on Monday after the pound-for-pound champion failed to pay up a $200,000 sanctioning fee for his victory over Manny Pacquiao on May 2, 2015.
The WBO belt was held by Pacquiao since April after his rematch victory over Tim Bradley. Mayweather stated initially that he wouldn’t be accepting the belt. However, he changed his mind later which prompted the WBO to give him the ultimatum to pay the fee which lapsed this Friday.
The undefeated champ made a public statement after his victory over Pacquiao that he would be vacating all his titles in order to make way for others who could fight for them, but so far that hasn’t happened. So, in the absence of the 200 grand, the WBO referred the case to its championship committee and made the call to pull the belt.
Mayweather still possesses the RING, WBC and WBA titles in both the welterweight and junior middleweight divisions.
With the WBO title now gone from Mayweather’s waist, Tim Bradley is most likely the frontrunner to attain full titleholder status. Bradley became the WBO interim titleholder with his unanimous-decision win over Jessie Vargas on June 27.
