Floyd Mayweather slams state of boxing and amount of world title belts and says ‘everyone is a champion’ now
FLOYD MAYWEATHER has slammed the current state of boxing and claims there are too many belts within the sport.
The former five-weight world champion, 45, retired with a 50-0 record after defeating Conor McGregor in 2017.
He won 15 major world championships from super featherweight to light middleweight during his glittering career.
But now he says “everybody is a champion” as he hit out at the “watered down” boxing scene now.
During an interview with FightHype, Mayweather said: “If you look nowadays in the top ten, everybody’s got a belt now. I never won an ‘interim’ belt.
“There’s too many belts in the sport of boxing, so boxing is really watered down now. Everybody is champion.”
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There are 17 weight classes in boxing that have four major sanctioning bodies that have world champions.
That means there are at least 68 world champions, plus several of the bodies also have “regular”, “franchise” and “interim” champions – which totals up to another 15 belts held by fighters.
It is not the first time that Mayweather has blasted the number of belts and champions in the sport.
Back in 2020, he said: “The WBC, the WBA, the IBF and the WBO, y’all have to clean this s**t up. Y’all have to clean this up.
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“This is bad for boxing. Ain’t a such thing as no super champion.
“You guys are just taking extra money from all these fighters, getting extra money from sanctioning fees. And this goes for my company as well.
“We gotta clean this sport of boxing up. This s**t, this don’t look good.
“When you look on TV now, everybody’s a champion. You see all these fighters posing with a belt.”
MONEY MAYWEATHER
Meanwhile, Mayweather has claimed he made a whopping $1MILLION for his pre-exhibition fight press conference with Don Moore.
Money’s latest media event took place just hours after protege Gervonta Davis faced off with Rolando Romero at his own media day.
Davis immediately took aim at his mentor on social media, but Mayweather defended himself afterwards.
It will be the first time he has taken part in an exhibition fight since last June.
Mayweather officially retired in 2017 after beating UFC superstar McGregor and extending his record to an historic 50-0.
But it was NOT the final time fans saw the pay-per-view king in the ring, as he has fought in two exhibition comebacks since.
He first returned in Tokyo on December 31, 2018, beating Japanese featherweight kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa, 23, in one round.
Then last June Mayweather was taken the distance by YouTuber Logan Paul, 27, who weighed TWO STONE more in the eight-rounder.
Now he will face his former sparring partner Moore in Dubai in an eight-rounder atop the Burj Khalifa’s helipad on May 14.