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The World Boxing Organization (WBO) is an organization which sanctions
professional boxing Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional fights are supervised by a regulatory auth ...
bouts. It is recognized by the
International Boxing Hall of Fame The International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF), located in Canastota, New York, right next to exit 34 of the New York State Thruway, honors boxers, trainers and other contributors to the sport worldwide. Inductees are selected on ballots cre ...
(IBHOF) as one of the four major world championship groups, alongside the
World Boxing Association The World Boxing Association (WBA), formerly known as the National Boxing Association (NBA), is an international professional boxing organization based in Panama. The WBA awards its world championship title at the professional level. Founded ...
(WBA),
World Boxing Council The World Boxing Council (WBC) is an international professional boxing organization. It is among the four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Association (WBA), International Boxing Federation ...
(WBC), and
International Boxing Federation The International Boxing Federation (IBF) is one of four major organizations recognized by the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) which sanctions professional boxing bouts. The others are the World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing C ...
(IBF). The WBO's headquarters are located in
San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John (disambiguation), Saint John, most commonly refers to: * San Juan, Puerto Rico * San Juan, Argentina * San Juan, Metro Manila, a highly urbanized city in the Philippines San Juan may also refer to: Places Arge ...
,
Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...
.


History

The WBO started after a group of Puerto Rican and Dominican businessmen broke out of the WBA's 1988 annual convention in
Isla Margarita Margarita Island (, ) is the largest island in the Venezuelan state of Nueva Esparta, situated off the north west coast of the country, in the Caribbean Sea. The capital city of Nueva Esparta, La Asunción, is located on the island. History ...
, Venezuela over disputes regarding what rules should be applied. 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 Super middleweight, or light cruiserweight, is a weight class in combat sports. Boxing In professional boxing, super middleweight is contested between the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions, in which boxers can weigh between 160 pounds ( ...
title, between
Thomas Hearns Thomas Hearns (born October 18, 1958) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1977 to 2006. Nicknamed the "Detroit, Motor City Cobra", and more famously "the Hitman", Hearns's tall, slender build and long arms and shoulders al ...
and James Kinchen; Hearns won by decision. In order to gain respectability, the WBO next elected former world light heavyweight champion José Torres of
Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce ( , , ) is a city and a Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The most populated city outside the San Juan, Puerto Rico, San Juan metropolitan area, Ponce was founded on August 12, 1692Some publ ...
, as its president. Torres left in 1996, giving way to Puerto Rican lawyer Francisco Valcarcel as president. Valcarcel held the position until October 2024, he then stepped down and this gave way to the election of Puerto Rican attorney Gustavo Olivieri. While the IBF had awarded recognition to
Larry Holmes Larry Holmes (born November 3, 1949) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1973 to 2002 and was world heavyweight champion from 1978 until 1985. He is often considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. ...
soon after its inception in 1983 (as they did with several established champions in the lower weight divisions), the WBO sanctioned a fight between two relatively unknown fighters, Francesco Damiani (winner of the super heavyweight silver medal at the
1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and commonly known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the ...
) and
Johnny DuPlooy Johnny du Plooy (27 September 1964 – 12 April 2013) was a South African former heavyweight boxer best known for his win over former WBA World Heavyweight champion Mike Weaver. He challenged once for the WBO World Heavyweight title in 1989. B ...
, to determine the inaugural holder of its own heavyweight title in 1989. All other sanctioning bodies of boxing recognized the then-undefeated
Mike Tyson Michael Gerard Tyson (born June 30, 1966) is an American former professional boxer who competed between 1985 and 2024. Nicknamed "Iron Mike" and "Kid Dynamite" in his early career, and later known as "the Baddest Man on the Planet", Tyson i ...
as the undisputed heavyweight champion. Damiani, meanwhile, went on to become the first WBO heavyweight champion. At heavyweight, especially in the United States, the organization initially struggled to gain credibility as a major sanctioning body, with WBO heavyweight champions
Michael Moorer Michael Lee Moorer (born November 12, 1967) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 2008. He won a world championship on four occasions in two weight classes, having held the WBO light heavyweight title from 1988 t ...
,
Riddick Bowe Riddick Lamont Bowe (born August 10, 1967) is an American former professional boxer and professional kickboxer who competed between 1989 and 2008 in boxing, and from 2013 to 2016 in kickboxing (Muay Thai). He held the undisputed world heavyweig ...
, and
Henry Akinwande Henry Adetokunboh Akinwande (born 12 October 1965) is a British former WBO boxing world champion who competed from 1989 to 2008. He held the WBO heavyweight title from 1996 to 1997, as well as the Commonwealth heavyweight title in 1993, and t ...
relinquishing the title to pursue other options. Boxing publication '' The Ring'' also did not recognize the WBO, despite having recognized the IBF after its inception in 1983, five years prior to the WBO. In the lighter weight divisions, however, long-reigning champions during the 1990s such as
Chris Eubank Christopher Livingstone Eubank (also Christopher Livingstone Eubank Sr. born 8 August 1966) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 1998. He held the World Boxing Organization (WBO) middleweight and super-middlewei ...
,
Dariusz Michalczewski Dariusz Tomasz Michalczewski (born 5 May 1968) is a Polish-German professional boxer who competed from 1991 to 2005. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the WBA, IBF, WBO and lineal light heavyweight titles ...
,
Johnny Tapia John Lee Anthony Tapia (February 13, 1967 – May 27, 2012) was an American professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 2011. He held multiple world championships in three weight classes, including the unified IBF and WBO super flyweight title ...
, and
Naseem Hamed Naseem Hamed (Arabic: نسيم حميد; born 12 February 1974), nicknamed Prince Naseem and Naz, is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2002.Davies, Gareth A (8 June 2015)"Prince Naseem Hamed: 'I always thought they w ...
gave the WBO title increasingly more prestige. The WBO was also made popular by boxers such as
Marco Antonio Barrera Marco Antonio Barrera Tapia (born January 17, 1974) is a Mexican former professional boxer who competed from 1989 to 2011. He held multiple triple champion, world championships in three weight classes between 1995 and 2007, from super bantamwei ...
,
Oscar De La Hoya Oscar De La Hoya ( , ; born February 4, 1973) is an American Promoter (entertainment), boxing promoter and former professional boxing, professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2008. His accolades include winning 11 list of boxing sextuple ch ...
,
Nigel Benn Nigel Gregory Benn (born 22 January 1964), is a former British professional boxer who competed from 1987 to 1996. A two-weight world champion, he held the WBO middleweight title in 1990 and reigned as the WBC super-middleweight champion f ...
,
Ronald "Winky" Wright Ronald Lamont "Winky" Wright (born November 26, 1971) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1990 to 2012. He is a two-time light middleweight world champion and was the last to hold the undisputed title at that weight until ...
,
Joe Calzaghe Joseph William Calzaghe ( ; born 23 March 1972) is a Welsh former professional boxer who competed from 1993 to 2008. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including unified and lineal titles at super-middleweight, and ...
, and
Wladimir Klitschko Wladimir Klitschko; an equivalent English spelling is Vladimir Klichko . His full name in , . (born 25 March 1976) is a Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2017. He held multiple heavyweight world championships betwe ...
, all of whom held its title. On August 23, 1997, WBC
minimumweight Mini flyweight, also known as paperweight, minimumweight, strawweight, or super atomweight, is a weight class in combat sports. Boxing In professional boxing, boxers in the minimumweight division may weigh no more than . This is a relatively new ...
champion Ricardo López won the WBO minimumweight title by knocking out Puerto Rican fighter Alex Sánchez. After the bout, López told a Mexican newspaper that he wanted to give his newly won championship belt to his father, who is a boxing fan. WBO president Francisco Valcarcel said he viewed that comment as a public resignation and declared the title vacant without holding a hearing or notifying López. The WBO sanctioned a bout between Eric Jamili (10–5–1) and Mickey Cantwell (13–4–1) to fill the vacancy despite protests by López. In Europe, the WBO was more accepted during its early years than in the U.S., and WBO champions always fared well in unification bouts with WBA, WBC, and IBF champions. For example, WBO light heavyweight champion Michalczewski unified his title with the WBA and IBF titles by defeating Virgil Hill. WBO featherweight champion Naseem Hamed also defeated the reigning WBA, WBC and IBF champions in the same weight class. By 2000, the WBA was giving the same recognition to WBO champions as it did to WBC and IBF champions. In 2004 the WBC began naming WBO champions on its ranking listings. The IBF did not recognize the WBO in May 2006, but was doing so by February 2007. WBO regulations explicitly recognize the other three sanctioning bodies. For many years, as with the IBF, boxers based in Japan were not permitted to fight for WBO titles. In 2012, the Japan Boxing Commission (JBC) recognized the governing body. In August 2016, the WBO Asia Pacific Championship was recognized by the JBC and the Japan Professional Boxing Association (JPBA). WBO men's championship belts are brown, whereas women's championship belts are pink. In response to the
Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
, the WBO blocked championship fights involving Russian and Belarusian boxers.


Super titles

Since the early 2000s, the WBO has awarded the honorary title of "Super Champion" to certain boxers, in any given weight class, who fulfil a set of distinguished criteria. Boxers who have been named WBO Super Champion include:
Anthony Joshua Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua (born 15 October 1989) is a British professional boxer. He held the unified champion, unified world heavyweight championship twice between 2016 and 2021. At regional level, he held the British Boxing Board of C ...
,
Wladimir Klitschko Wladimir Klitschko; an equivalent English spelling is Vladimir Klichko . His full name in , . (born 25 March 1976) is a Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2017. He held multiple heavyweight world championships betwe ...
,
Oleksandr Usyk Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Usyk (, ; born 17 January 1987) is a Ukrainian professional boxer. He has held the unified champion (boxing), unified heavyweight championship since 2021, and the ''The Ring (magazine), Ring'' magazine title since 2022 ...
,
Joe Calzaghe Joseph William Calzaghe ( ; born 23 March 1972) is a Welsh former professional boxer who competed from 1993 to 2008. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including unified and lineal titles at super-middleweight, and ...
,
Oscar De La Hoya Oscar De La Hoya ( , ; born February 4, 1973) is an American Promoter (entertainment), boxing promoter and former professional boxing, professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2008. His accolades include winning 11 list of boxing sextuple ch ...
, Bernard Hopkins,
Jermain Taylor Jermain Taylor (born August 11, 1978) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2001 to 2014. He remains the most recent undisputed champion in the middleweight division, having defeated Bernard Hopkins in 2005, and in doing s ...
, Kelly Pavlik,
Saúl Álvarez Saul is a masculine given name of Hebrew origin. It is the English form of ''שָׁאוּל‎'', the Hebrew name of the Biblical King Saul. The name translates to "asked for/borrowed". People named Saul include: * Saul Adadi (1850–1918), Se ...
,
Juan Manuel Márquez Juan Manuel Márquez Méndez (born August 23, 1973) is a Mexican former professional boxer who competed from 1993 to 2014. He held multiple quadruple champion#Boxing, world championships in four weight classes, from featherweight to light welte ...
, Juan Díaz, Naoya Inoue,
Manny Pacquiao Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao Sr. ( ; ; born December17, 1978) is a Filipino politician, businessman, and professional boxer. Nicknamed "PacMan", he is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional boxers of all time. He previously serv ...
,
Timothy Bradley Timothy Ray Bradley Jr. (born August 29, 1983) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2004 to 2016. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the World Boxing Council (WBC) light welterweight titl ...
,
Marco Antonio Barrera Marco Antonio Barrera Tapia (born January 17, 1974) is a Mexican former professional boxer who competed from 1989 to 2011. He held multiple triple champion, world championships in three weight classes between 1995 and 2007, from super bantamwei ...
, Fernando Montiel,
Jorge Arce Jorge Armando Arce Armenta (; born July 27, 1979), best known as Jorge Arce, is a Mexican former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2014. He is a multiple-time world champion, and the second boxer from Mexico to win world titles in ...
, Omar Narváez, Donnie Nietes, Kosei Tanaka, Iván Calderón,
Marco Huck Muamer Hukić (born 11 November 1984), best known as Marco Huck, is a Bosniaks in Germany, Bosniak German professional boxer.. Retrieved 2015-12-01. He held the World Boxing Organization, WBO cruiserweight (boxing), cruiserweight title from 2009 ...
, Sergey Kovalev,
Vasyl Lomachenko Vasiliy Anatolyevich Lomachenko (also spelled Vasyl Anatoliyovych Lomachenko; , ; born 17 February 1988) is a Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed between 2013 and 2024. He has held multiple world championships in three weight class ...
, and
Terence Crawford Terence Allan Crawford (born September 28, 1987) is an American professional boxer. He has held multiple quadruple champion#Boxing, world championships in four weight classes, from lightweight to light middleweight, including the undisputed cha ...
. There are currently only two female boxers who earned the distinction of "Super Champion": Amanda Serrano and
Claressa Shields Claressa Maria Shields (born March 17, 1995) is an American professional boxer and former professional Mixed martial arts, mixed martial artist. She has held multiple world championships in Quintuple champion#Boxing, five weight classes, includi ...
. This title is not an actual world championship in the same vein as the WBA's Super titles; it is more akin to a lifetime achievement award. A boxer awarded the status of WBO Super Champion cannot win the title from or lose it to another boxer; recognition as Super Champion can be maintained even if a boxer moves to another weight class.


Ranking system

The WBO publishes monthly rankings, with fighters that win regional championships sanctioned by its subsidiaries being given priority. The World Championship Committee exists to name a
mandatory challenger In professional boxing and some other combat sports, a mandatory challenger is an opponent whom a champion must either fight (in a mandatory defence) or be forced to vacate their title as champion. The opposite of a mandatory defence is a ''volunt ...
, whom the incumbent champion is forced to fight within an arbitrary timeframe, when this term should be extended, when eliminatories are warranted and when a title is stripped. The body is also responsible for determining who the challengers should be in the case of vacancy or the necessity of an interim title. Exception to this rule are those recognized as "Super Champions", who can directly challenge for the world championship in another division even if they have not fought in it before. There are other superficial differences between the WBO and other bodies, such as the listing of the 140 lb. division as "junior welterweight", whereas the WBC uses the term "super lightweight". Prior to the WBO being recognized as a major sanctioning body, the system displayed vulnerability when deceased boxer Darrin Morris was moved up twice in the super-middleweights in 2001. In addition, Morris had only fought once in the three years before his death, beating a fighter with only 17 wins out of 81 fights. Morris was Number 7 at the time of his death and Number 5 when the WBO discovered the error. Valcarcel 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. One week after British newspaper ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' broke the story that one of the three men ranking the boxers, Gordon Volkman, still had not heard that Morris was dead.


Relationship with other bodies

Under Valcárcel, the WBO was the only sanctioning body that was absent from a summit held in 2014 where the possibility of a single champion per division was to be discussed. In 2014, he publicly opposed the awarding of half-points within the 10-Point Must System favored by the other three. Individually, Valcárcel has also been critical of the WBC for creating the "Maya Belt" and placing it in play in fights where the WBO title was at stake. Another topic that he commented negatively about was the WBA's sanctioning of up to four champions per division. Despite this, following the onset of the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
and the economic impact on the sport, the WBO invited the presidents of the other organizations to a reunion of its executive board held in October 2021. The main topic of concern was how to manage the mandatory challengers of unified and undisputed champions, in lieu of the promoters and television/streaming platforms complaining about the logistics of consecutive obligatory defenses. This was the first time that the leaders of the four main organizations met personally, with the idea of sanctioning a single champion per division being discussed.


In other media

The series finale of Japanese
manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...
series ''
Bleach Bleach is the generic name for any chemical product that is used industrially or domestically to remove color from (i.e. to whiten) fabric or fiber (in a process called bleaching) or to disinfect after cleaning. It often refers specifically t ...
'' revolves around the main cast gathering to watch a fight in which a character named
Yasutora Sado is a fictional character in the Japanese manga and anime series ''Bleach'' created by Tite Kubo. He is also one of Ichigo Kurosaki's friends. Because Ichigo first read Yasutora's name off a nametag, he pronounced his family name as due to the ...
is involved, having become a professional boxer ten years after the storyline and challenging for the WBO world heavyweight championship. The entity has, on occasion, been involved in other areas of sports entertainment, such as when it allowed René Santiago to defend the North American Boxing Organization minimumweight title in a staged match against Fernando Tonos as part of a
professional wrestling Professional wrestling, often shortened to either pro wrestling or wrestling,The term "wrestling" is most often widely used to specifically refer to modern scripted professional wrestling, though it is also used to refer to Real life, real- ...
card held by the International Wrestling Association (IWA-PR). The WBO World Heavyweight Championship also appears as a minor storyline element in ''
Creed III ''Creed III'' is a 2023 American sports drama film starring and directed by Michael B. Jordan in his directorial debut, and produced by Irwin Winkler, Charles Winkler, William Chartoff, David Winkler, Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, Eliza ...
'', as one of the belts held by the titular character as undisputed titlist of his division.


Current WBO world title holders

As of


Male


Female


WBO affiliated organizations

* North American Boxing Organization (NABO) * WBO Latino * WBO Asia Pacific * Indian Professional Boxing Association (IPBA)


See also

* List of major boxing sanctioning bodies *
List of WBO world champions This is a list of WBO world champions, showing every world champion certified by the World Boxing Organization (WBO). The WBO is one of the four major governing bodies in professional boxing, and has awarded world championships in 17 different we ...
*
List of WBO female world champions This is a list of WBO world champions, showing every world champion certified by the World Boxing Organization (WBO). The WBO is one of the four major governing bodies in professional boxing, and has awarded world championships in 17 different wei ...
*
List of current world boxing champions This is a list of current male world boxing champions. Since at least John L. Sullivan, in the late 19th century, there have been world champions in professional boxing. The first of the current organizations to award a world title was the Wo ...


References


External links


World Boxing Organization official website

All-time WBO World champions – Reference book
{{World boxing champions International sports organizations Professional boxing governing bodies International organizations based in Puerto Rico Sports organizations established in 1988 1988 establishments in Puerto Rico Organizations based in San Juan, Puerto Rico Sports governing bodies in Puerto Rico