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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.

Contents 1 History 2 Criticism 2.1 Initial holder of heavyweight title 2.2 Ranking of deceased boxer 3 Current WBO world title holders 4 Former champions 5 WBO affiliated organizations 5.1 Transition of WBO titles 6 Other boxing organizations 7 References 8 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.^{[clarification 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 its vacant 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, as its president. Torres 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 Manny Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya, Marco Antonio Barrera, Ronald "Winky" Wright, Naseem Hamed, Verno Phillips, Michael Carbajal, Johnny Tapia, Harry Simon, Jermain Taylor, Nigel Benn, Paul "Silky" Jones, Gerald McClellan, Joe Calzaghe, Steve Collins, Daniel Santos, Michael Moorer, Dariusz Michalczewski, Chris Eubank, Vitali Klitschko, Wladimir Klitschko and Chris Byrd in the 1990s.

[edit] Criticism

[edit] Initial holder of heavyweight title

The WBO sanctioned a fight between two relatively unknown fighters, Francesco Damiani and Johnny DuPlooy, to determine the initial holder of its heavyweight title in 1989, although all other sanctioning bodies of boxing recognized Mike Tyson as the heavyweight champion at the time. Damiani went on to win the initial WBO heavyweight title. ^{[1] [2]}

[edit] Ranking of deceased boxer

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." Valcarcel also stated that other boxing sanctioning organizations had made similar errors in the past by continuing to rank another boxer after he was dead. ^[3] 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. ^[4]

[edit] Current WBO world title holders

Weight class:	Title holder:	Date won:
Mini flyweight	Donnie Nietes	September 30, 2007
Junior flyweight	Iván Calderón	August 25, 2007
Flyweight	Omar Andrés Narváez	July 13, 2002
Junior bantamweight	Vacant	N/A
Bantamweight	Fernando Montiel	April 25, 2009
Junior featherweight	Juan Manuel López	June 7, 2008
Featherweight	Steven Luevano	July 14, 2007
Junior lightweight	Román Martínez	September 6, 2008
Lightweight	Juan Manuel Márquez	February 28, 2009
Junior welterweight	Timothy Bradley	April 4, 2009
Welterweight	Manny Pacquiao	November 14, 2009
Junior middleweight	Sergiy Dzinziruk	December 3, 2005
Middleweight	Kelly Pavlik	September 29, 2007
Super middleweight	Robert Stieglitz	August 22, 2009
Light heavyweight	Jürgen Brähmer	November 13, 2009
Cruiserweight	Marco Huck	August 29, 2009
Heavyweight	Wladimir Klitschko	February 23, 2008

[edit] Former champions

[edit] WBO affiliated organizations

• North American Boxing Organization (NABO)
• WBO LATINO (LATINO)
• WBO Asia-Pacific

[edit] Transition of WBO titles

• List of WBO world champions
• List of WBO Asia Pacific champions
• List of WBO Inter-Continental champions
• List of WBO Latino champions

[edit] Other boxing organizations

• World Boxing Association (WBA)
• World Boxing Council (WBC)
• International Boxing Federation (IBF)
• World Professional Boxing Federation (WPBF)
• International Boxing Organization (IBO)
• World Boxing Union (WBU)
• International Boxing Association (IBA)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• World Boxing Organization official website