World Boxing Organization
| World Boxing Organization
WBO |
|
|---|---|
| sport | Boxing |
| Founded | 1988 |
| Place of foundation |
 San Juan
|
| president |
Francisco Varcarcel
|
| Association headquarters |
San Juan
|
| Homepage | [1] |
The World Boxing Organization (WBO) is an international boxing association that organizes official fights and awards the world championship title in professional boxing . In addition to the World Boxing Association (WBA), the World Boxing Council (WBC) and the International Boxing Federation (IBF ), the WBO has been one of the four major boxing associations whose world championship titles are internationally recognized since 2007. The WBO is a non-profit organization based in San Juan , Puerto Rico .
history
The association was formed after a group of businessmen from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in 1988 the annual congress of the World Boxing Association on Isla Margarita ( Venezuela left), since they are the rules and evaluation systems of the WBA rejected.
The first President of the WBO was Ramon Pina Acevedo from the Dominican Republic . Shortly after its inception, the WBO began hosting title fights around the world. Her first fight was for the super middleweight title ; Thomas Hearns won against James Kinchen.
In order to gain more recognition, the WBO appointed former world light heavyweight champion , José Torres from Ponce, Puerto Rico , as its new president. Torres was able to significantly increase the influence of the organization and resigned his office in 1996 to Francisco Varcarcel (also Puerto Rico), who is president to this day.
The WBO saw sufficient potential in a highly competitive market only in Europe and established itself in the 1990s primarily through promoters such as the German Klaus-Peter Kohl ( Universum Box-Promotion ) and Frank Warren ( England ). This was expressed in the fact that the WBO rankings initially mostly led boxers of European origin. As a result, the WBO titleholders were often not considered the “true world champions” in their respective weight classes. Boxers like the eccentric Briton Chris Eubank , who knew how to stage events on a grand scale, made the WBO better known, at least in Europe. But also Eubank was always in the shadow of the great counter world champions James Toney ( IBF ) and Michael Nunn (WBA).
But there are also counterexamples. So the British Naseem Hamed became a star in the USA and kept his WBO title. However, he achieved his reputation of being the best in his weight class, above all by not limiting himself to defending his titles, but also by looking for a comparison with the world champions of the competitive associations. The same goes for super middleweight Joe Calzaghe from Wales. He defeated the American IBF title holder Jeff Lacy in 2006 and is considered by many experts to be the strongest boxer in his weight class.
Other great boxers, who were WBO world champions, first resigned their titles in order to subsequently make a name for themselves as title holders of the other three associations. Óscar de la Hoya , who founded his extensive title collections with the WBO world championship titles in featherweight and lightweight, only became a superstar after he wrested the WBC title from boxing legend Julio César Chávez . The subsequent title defenses against top people in the boxing scene such as Félix Trinidad , Ike Quartey , Pernell Whitaker or Fernando Vargas ultimately led to de la Hoya enjoying a popularity around the world that is otherwise only reserved for a few boxers in the heavyweight scene .
In recent years the WBO has achieved a lot in terms of establishing itself as a world association alongside the IBF (USA), the WBA (Venezuela) and the WBC (Mexico). Nevertheless, especially in the USA, the WBO is still not seen on an equal footing with the other world associations. A clear example is the premier class, the heavyweight. Since the WBO was founded, with a few exceptions, the most popular heavyweight boxers of their time such as Mike Tyson , Lennox Lewis or Evander Holyfield have never fought for the WBO belt. When efforts were made to choose a common champion again in the late 1990s, the WBO title was not taken into account. Lennox Lewis, who eventually emerged as the big winner, was the official world champion of all associations "only" holding the titles of IBF, WBC and WBA. The same applies to Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe , who also held the titles of the major associations together in the early 1990s. Bowe won the WBO title against Herbie Hide at least a few years after his time as "absolute world champion" and defended it once before voluntarily resigning it.
The WBO put Darrin Morris up two places in its super middleweight rankings in 2001, even though he was already dead. When he died, Morris was in seventh place; when the WBO noticed the mistake, he was in fifth place. WBO chief Varcarcel said: “We obviously didn't realize that Darrin was dead. It's unfortunate. ”Morris had only had one fight in three years, beating a boxer with a match record of 15 wins in 78 fights.
WBO World Champions
The WBO awards the title World Champion (abbreviated: Champion) to the winners of championships in the various weight classes. Like in other associations, champions have to defend their title within nine months (compulsory defense). The exception here is the heavyweight division, where the compulsory defense must take place within 12 months. The opponent of a compulsory defense is determined by the Championchip Committee and is usually the leader in the WBO rankings for the relevant weight class. If a champion does not defend his title in the allotted time, it can be withdrawn from him by the Championchip Committee .
WBO champions are or were among others: Marco Antonio Barrera , Nigel Benn , Riddick Bowe , Lamon Brewster , Chris Byrd , Joe Calzaghe , Hector Camacho Sr. , Michael Carbajal , Steve Collins , Diego Corrales , Óscar de la Hoya , Chris Eubank , Tyson Fury , Naseem Hamed , Thomas Hearns , Bernard Hopkins , Vitali Klitschko , Wladimir Klitschko , Gerald McClellan , Ray Mercer , Dariusz Michalczewski , Michael Moorer , Tommy Morrison , Alex Sánchez , Corrie Sanders , Herbie Hide , Marco Huck , Susi Kentikian , Ina Menzer , Robert Stieglitz , Arthur Abraham , Ramona Kühne and Raja Amasheh .
WBO Super Champions
The WBO Executive Committee may nominate a boxer to be a WBO Super Champion upon the proposal of the WBO Championship Committee . The nomination for this status is tied to certain criteria. A candidate must have successfully defended his WBO championship title at least ten times or, if the number of successful title defenses is lower, they must have defended them against opponents of high reputation or athletic quality. In addition, the WBO takes into account the amateur career and the number of titles in different weight classes or associations when making nominations. The appointment is decided by a vote within the Executive Committee.
The status of the WBO Super Champion is associated with certain privileges. The Championship Committee can, on request, extend the period for the compulsory defense within the WBO, for example to give the Super Champion the opportunity to fight a union fight. You can make him a mandatory challenger in another weight class of the WBO or your own weight class. The latter is usually the case when a Super Champion has lost a Championship and wants to recapture it in a direct rematch.
In contrast to the WBA , in which the nomination of a boxer as WBA Super Champion in a weight class makes the champion title in this class vacant, in the WBO there is only one title holder per weight class.
WBO Super Champions are or were among others: Marco Huck , Sergey Kovalev , Wladimir Klitschko , Óscar de la Hoya and Dariusz Michalczewski .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Joshua's compatriot owned the belts of WBA, IBF and WBC, at that time the WBO was not yet part of the illustrious circle. She has only been there since 2007. Since then, the undisputed champion has had four titles.
- ↑ General Principles. In: Constitution of the WBO. Retrieved April 16, 2016 .
- ↑ Tim Graham: New WBO division: Dead weight. ESPN Boxing, accessed April 16, 2016 .
- ^ Section 5. Defense of the Title. In: Regulations of World Championchip Contests. WBO, accessed April 11, 2016 .
- ↑ a b Section 14. Super Champions. In: Regulations of World Championchip Contests. WBO, accessed April 11, 2016 .
- ↑ Super Champion Status. In: Rules of the World Boxing Association. WBA, November 6, 2016, accessed April 12, 2016 .
- ^ WBO rankings (search by month and year). WBO, accessed April 12, 2016 .