THE WBC STRIPS MOSLEY; DECLARES FLOYD THEIR CHAMP

The Board of Governors is officially declaring today Floyd Mayweather, as the one and only undisputed WBC welterweight champion. The organization is very proud of Floyd Mayqeather for becoming one of the absolute best in the history of the sport, by having won 5 world WBC championships in different divisions, which nobody else has ever done in the history of the sport.

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I guess they learned nothing from the Roccigiani case.

 

:::bears:

 

i knew this was gonna happen.

how can an interim champ unify? is that even possible?

so if mosley hadn't been stripped, the winner of this bout would become a partially unified WBA super champ and an interim WBC champ? ::

 

Good.

 

Overrated fighter anyway.
Fast-hands and nothing else.

 

Nah. Mosley hits pretty well and he's very tough.

 

Mosley is underrated. He was the first guy to decisively beat Oscar, he's got a great resume, is pretty undersized at 147 and 154, fast hands, good power, decent skill, excellent chin, fun to watch.

He is underrated because of the Vernon and Winky losses. Vernon was clearly just his style nemesis, and the winky fights were close, against a great, and bigger fighter.

Mosley has a great chance of upsetting Cotto, though I am picking Cotto by late TKO.

 

Shit fighter!!!
Vernon Forrest made Mosley squeal with a bodyshot when he smashed him and first exposed the papered-over cracks in Mosley's wall.

What sort of fighter makes a bitch sound like that???
You go 'Oooofffff!!' or 'Uurrggghh!!'.....but not 'Aiiieeeeee!!!'. :nono:

Plus he couldn't put a dent in 'Winky' - even when given 4 free fucking shots!!!! :eeeek: :shit:

 

Just like a sanctioning body can and will strip a champ for not defending their belt, why not for their interim belt?

Criticism for this is unwarranted.

 

::

 

:doh: is all I have to say.

 

::

 

I think Shane is rated just about right. Dude is past his prime, facing a young, undefeated lion in Cotto. The decisive Oscar win was 7 years ago, and he got just about all of the mileage he could out of that fight.

The Winky fights weren't all that close, especially not the first one. He was running away with the second one as well until foolishly trying to pull a Mayorga. That one punch (which did buzz Wink, no matter how much he denies) let Shane back in the fight.

Anyway. it's neither here nor there. The fact that quite a few are predicting an upset says that either they still believe Shane has enough left, or they just don't think much of Cotto. Which is why I say he's still rated just about right, these days.

 

As for this move, not sure why I'm trying to bring rational thought into alphabet discussion, but...

Can Shane even "defend" an interim title against another titlist? To me, interim title means nothing more than being guaranteed a greater slice of the pie than would a mandatory against the "full version" champ, should a fight go to purse bid. if Cotto wins, would the WBC recognize him as their interim champ, even though he holds another title?

I'm struggling to recall if there's ever been a unification match involving interim/regular champs. But the fight itself seemed like a damned if he does/damned if he doesn't move for Shane. He either fights the next guy in line for the WBC while waiting out a supposedly guaranteed shot at the Floyd/Cotto winner (which would probably score him a high 7-figure, possilby low 8-figure payday), or he dumps this title and takes the $3 million now for a Cotto fight.

If a Floyd fight (or Hatton fight, should ricky pull off the upset) was legitimately in the near future, then everyone gets to once again second-guess Shane's business decisions if/when he loses to Cotto.

 

No. It's like Juan Manuel Marquez. He gave up his shot at Hamed when he lost to Norwood.

 

I might not be a lawyer or anything, but does this really mean anything when you get to the bottom line? Was Mosely's interim belt on the line for this fight with Cotto? I can't see why Cotto would even care about it.

Something stinks about this though. Like Floyd whined to the WBC about not wanting to fight Shane after Hatton, even IF Mosely won as well as himself. Now he doesn't "have" to.

 

Have you EVER heard of an interim titlist fighting for another title and keeping the interim title? One example.

 

This isn't the same thing. You can lose a title when you lose even if you aren't defending it. This happens all the time.

I believe a guy could be an ABC interim champ and XYZ champ at the same time. He just has to adhere to the ABC's rules (and XYZ's for that matter).

I don't think anyone would call that a unified champion, but if the ABC full champ relinquished his title, then yeah...now you have a real ABC/XYZ unified champ.

 

that makes the most sense, but only for those who view interim titlists as mandatory challengers. On one hand, people are clowning the alphabets for creating these titles, on the other, they bitch when said fighters are stripped of them.

The downside of interim titlist over mandatory is that you pay sanctioning fees while awaiting a title shot. But the upside is that you recoup them when you finally face the real champ, because a fight that goes to purse bid means you're entitled to 45% of the pot rather than 25% (or 20% if the fight is in your (the challenger's) home state). And it's usually never more than 1 or 2 fights as interim champ, at which point you're either getting your shot, or the other guy gets stripped and you're upgraded to full-fledged champ.

It's all madness at the end of the day, but it's less of an argument once people actually read up on the rules for the alphabet groups. Something most writers will normally pass on en route to banging the popular misconception that Jose and co. are the sole reason for the sport's demise.

 

but the problem is, the WBC is saying he's breaking the rules by fighting Cotto, whos not ranked by the WBC. Why? Because he holds a WBA title.

That's why you can't be ABC interim/XYZ champ at the same time. One doesn't recognize the other in their rankings. Shane can't hold a mandatory position (Which is all an interim champion is) while laying claim as titlist for another organization. The normal rule of thumb is to drop Fighter A from the mandatory slot just for AGREEING to fight another titlist.

 

But he's not adhering to the WBC's rules by not defending the title in his next fight.

 

This isn't how I read that at all. I read it that the WBC wants Shane to defend the (interim) title against Cotto and he's not, for whatever reason.

Hence, they are stripping him.

"The reason for withdrawing recognition from Shane Mosley as the interim WBC welterweight champion, is that he has violated the rules, by not defending his interim championship since he won the title from Luis Collazo on February 10, 2007, with 8 months gone, and he has not accepted to defend the WBC title in his fight against Miguel Cotto,"

 

Right. So how is this like Juan Manuel Marquez and Hamed?

AFAIR, and as far as it shows on boxrec...Marquez wasn't the wbo interim titlist when he fought Norwood. Is this not right?

 

mosley was trying to remain interim champ and use sulaiman to get him a shot at the winner of mayweather-hatton, after cotto defeats him?? haha, that would never work for him.

 

It reads that way to make it seem as if Shane isn't honoring his status as "champ", giving Don Jose the out to claim that he's not acting in accordance with their rules.

Either Shane or Cotto was going to get stripped, before or after the fight. Most likely Shane, becuase the WBC would've ruled that he can't be champ of one sanctioning body, and mandatory challenger/interim titlist for another. That's probably why Shane said fuck it, here's your title, I'll keep 3% extra for this fight.

What's really fucked up, though, is that there's no mandatory defense for Shane to make. The #1 contender is Hatton, who's fighting Floyd for the "real" WBC title. The only argument would be that Shane would file an extension in order to pursue another titlist, but even that's unnecessary because Floyd-Hatton winner would be obligated to fight Shane, not the other way around.

 

This is the part I 'disagree' with. I don't know that the WBC has such a rule.

And looking through their rules, I don't see it. They pretty much require sanctioned defenses within a year and they require that every time you fight at the weight class of your title, you defend your title (this is what resulted in the stripping).

Reference WBC rule:
1.22 General matters pertaining to championship defense obligations. <o></o>
<o> </o>
A WBC champion must always defend his WBC title if he fights in the same weight class division. Otherwise, the Champion agrees to relinquish his title

Perhaps Shane would have had to petition for 'permission' to fight Cotto since he wasn't ranked, but there's no reason to think that he wouldn't have gotten it. Especially, when you read the WBC's rules and their statement.

 

Until someone from G or the WBC responds to email or voice mail inquiry (I left both), it's all speculation.

But until then, if you can show the example where:
- a unification match took place involving a WBC (or WBA) interim titlst
- the winner of such fight held both titles for longer than it took to get out the arena

... then it'd be easier to believe that the WBC would've recognized Cotto-Mosley as a unification match AND honor the winner even if he kept the WBA title.

The problem is, I'm not sure any such example exists. The reason being, the interim title becomes vacant the moment its claimant wins another title. Much in the way the WBA "regular" title becomes vacant the moment its unified with the "super" title. (see Hopkins-Joppy)

 

I looked on Rubio's challeng above, but no luck.

Boxrec doesn't let you search for interim titles and they don't call that stupid regular wba title an interim title like it really is, either.

I keep track of this on my own (titles), but my information only goes back 5 years or so and I only do it when I see it or know it.

Anyway, that Joppy example was one chance. Mundine has had chances. Arce. Cintron. But, as you pointed out earlier...the point of these interim titles isn't really to be titles, but more like super mandatories...unless the full champ gets stripped. And interim titles aren't all that common in the first place, although the WBA wishes otherwise.

So just because there isn't an example that I (we) know of doesn't really prove anything.

Looking forward to hearing what you find out.

 

Again. I don't think the interim title necessarily becomes vacant when its claimant wins another title (except of course in the same sanctioning body like your example).

I couldn't find any example of an interim titlist fighting against another sanctioning body's champ, period. At least none where the main belt isn't also involved, i.e. hopkins/joppy.