World Boxing Organization

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The World Boxing Organization (WBO) is a sanctioning organization currently recognizing professional boxing "world" champions. Its offices are located in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

WBO logo mark

1 History
2 Current WBO world title holders
3 Former champions
4 Other world organizations
- 4.1 WBO affiliated organizations
- 4.2 Transition of WBO titles
5 External links

[edit] History

The WBO started after a group of Puerto Rican and Dominican businessmen broke out of the World Boxing Association's 1988 annual convention in Isla Margarita, Venezuela, claiming to be disgusted by the WBA's questionable rules and ratings systems. Many experts, however, accuse the group of having even less integrity than their former associates.^{[citation needed]}

The WBO's first president was Ramon Pina Acevedo of the Dominican Republic. Soon after its beginning, the WBO was staging world championship bouts around the globe. Its first championship fight was for the vacant World Super-middleweight title, between Thomas Hearns and James Kinchen; Hearns won by decision. In order to gain respectability, the WBO next elected former world light-heavyweight champion Jose Torres of Ponce, Puerto Rico its president. Torres achieved his goal and left in 1996, giving way to Puerto Rican lawyer Francisco Varcarcel as president. Varcarcel has been there since. The WBO was made popular by boxers such as Britain's flamboyant champion Chris Eubank, thanks to his 24 WBO world championship bouts in the 1990's and his ability to make an event spectacular even if his opponent was dull.

Nowadays, the WBO allows its champions to unify their crowns in matches against WBA and IBF (International Boxing Federation) world champions. The WBC (World Boxing Council) refused for years to let their world champions take part in unification bouts with WBO title holders, with the exception of the super middleweight unification bout between Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank in 1993 after Don King had stepped in to arrange it. Ironically, the judges scored the fight as a draw after twelve rounds and the titles were not unified.

The WBO twice moved Darrin Morris up in its super-middleweight rankings in 2001, despite the fact that he was dead. Morris was #7 at the time of his death and #5 when the WBO discovered the error. Varcarcel said "we obviously missed the fact that Darrin was dead. It is regrettable." One week after British newspaper The Independent broke the story, one of the three men ranking the boxers, Gordon Volkman, still had not heard that Morris was dead. In addition, Morris had only fought once in three years, beating a boxer with only 15 wins out of 78 fights. [1]

The WBO has never been able to build a brand name equal to the IBF (U.S.A.), WBA (Venezuela), and WBC (Mexico)^{[citation needed]} but its matches are popular in some parts of the world. A key reason is that a few of today's most talented or successful (in modern boxing, the same fighter can be one, yet not the other) boxers have worn WBO belts. Also, at times, WBO Title matchups have been more appealing to declining or retired (yet still "big-name") fighters staging comebacks. These champions have represented a variety of countries, in the process boosting the industry credibility of areas like Europe and Asia. This has sometimes presented a stark contrast to the major organizations, whose title fights are frequently dominated by U.S. promoters and, therefore, U.S. fighters.

[edit] Current WBO world title holders

Weight class:	Champion:	Date won:
Mini flyweight	Ivan Calderón	May 3, 2003
Junior flyweight	Hugo Cázares	April 30, 2005
Flyweight	Omar Andrés Narváez	July 13, 2002
Junior bantamweight	Fernando Montiel	April 9, 2005
Bantamweight	Jhonny Gonzalez	October 29, 2005
Junior featherweight	Daniel Ponce de León	October 29, 2005
Featherweight	Juan Manuel Márquez	August 5, 2006
Junior lightweight	Joan Guzman	December 18, 2006
Lightweight	Acelino Freitas	April 29, 2006
Junior welterweight	Ricardo Torres	November 18, 2006
Welterweight	Antonio Margarito	December 2, 2006
Junior middleweight	Sergiy Dzinziruk	October 21, 2006
Middleweight	Jermain Taylor	December 9, 2006
Super middleweight	Joe Calzaghe	October 14, 2006
Light heavyweight	Zsolt Erdei	January 17, 2004
Junior heavyweight	Enzo Maccarinelli	July 8, 2006
Heavyweight	Shannon Briggs	November 4, 2006