Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the newest voice to criticize the rising variety of championships in boxing.
In an interview forward of a title struggle between Gervonta Davis and Leo Santa Cruz, Mayweather chastised these in boxing for the litany of title belts all through the game, particularly the sanctioning our bodies with a number of champions inside a single division.
“This isn’t good for the game of boxing,” Mayweather mentioned in an interview with Showtime. “Now when a fighter fights, each fighter is a champion.”
There are 4 main acknowledged sanctioning our bodies: the WBA, WBO, IBF and WBC. The WBA has “tremendous” variations of its belt, one in all which is held by Davis (23-0, 22 KOs) heading into his struggle towards Santa Cruz (37-1, 19 KOs). Mayweather admitted that even his promotional firm deserves blame for the development.
The previous pound-for-pound champion’s feedback got here lower than every week after a light-weight unification bout between Teofimo Lopez and Vasiliy Lomachenko. Lopez, who won via unanimous decision, was billed because the undisputed champion as a result of the WBC’s franchise belt was at stake. Nevertheless, ESPN acknowledges Devin Haney because the WBC’s high 135-pounder.
In an interview with The Athletic, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman claimed Lomachenko-Lopez would not have occurred and would have been much less profitable with out the WBC franchise belt. Sulaiman defended the group’s practices.
“I’m proud to have a designation for many who are actually the driving forces of boxing,” Sulaiman mentioned.
Others have disagreed with the system that has created important confusion amongst boxing followers. Mayweather argued that the principle motive for the a number of belts is for sanctioning our bodies such because the WBC and the WBA to gather extra money on sanctioning charges.
“Ain’t no such factor as tremendous champion,” Mayweather mentioned. “You guys are simply taking extra cash from all these fighters [by] getting extra cash from sanctioning charges.”
Not like main sports activities, boxing lacks a single unified governing physique to create guidelines and rules. These duties are usually left as much as the state athletic commissions and organizations such because the WBC. Together with his newest feedback, Mayweather has joined the rising group of voices involved about the place issues are heading.
“We gotta clear the game of boxing up,” Mayweather mentioned. “This do not look good.”
