World Boxing Organization

The World Boxing Organization (WBO) is one of the sanctioning organizations currently recognizing professional boxing "world" champions. Its offices are located in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Its championships were originally considered "stepping stone" titles, but have recently took a turn towards becoming recognized World Championships.

WBO logo mark

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 accuse the group of having even less integrity than their peers at the top or the bottom.

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. Their first championship fight was for their 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 to succeed him 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 mostly thanks to 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 unification bout between Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank in 1993 after Don King had stepped in to arrange it.
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]

In a relatively short time, the WBO has greatly progressed toward building a brand name equal to the IBF (U.S.A.), WBA (Venezuela), and WBC (Mexico). A key reason is that a few of today's most talented or successful (in boxing, the same fighter could 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. In any case, 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. promotersâ€"and therefore, U.S. fighters.

Champions

WBO champions have included:
*Zab Judah
*Marco Antonio Barrera
*Nigel Benn
*Riddick Bowe
*Lamon Brewster
*Chris Byrd
*Joe Calzaghe
*Hector Camacho
*Michael Carbajal
*Steve Collins
*Diego Corrales
*Oscar De La Hoya
*Chris Eubank
*Naseem Hamed
*Thomas Hearns
*Bernard Hopkins
*Vitali Klitschko
*Wladimir Klitschko
*Sergei Liakhovich
*Gerald McClellan
*Ray Mercer
*Dariusz Michalczewski
*Michael Moorer
*Tommy Morrison
*Alex "El Nene" Sánchez
*Corrie Sanders

WBO Championships

*WBO World Heavyweight Championship

See also

*World Boxing Organization official website