Floyd Mayweather says he will relinquish title belts before last fight
Floyd Mayweather said he will relinquish his titles after defeating Manny Pacquiao in a unanimous decision in Saturday's highly anticipated world welterweight championship.
Mayweather, now boxing's pound-for-pound champion after moving to 48–0 with the defeat of Pacquiao, said he would fight once more in September before retiring. Relinquishing his titles, which he said he expected to do on Monday, would mean that last fight would not be a title bout.
"Other fighters need to get a chance," Mayweather said. "I'm not greedy. I'm world champion at two different weight classes right now. ... It's time to let other fighters fight for the belt."
Mayweather is the WBA, WBC and WBO welterweight champion and the WBA, WBC Super and Ring junior middleweight champion.
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Paco Valcarcel, the president of the World Boxing Organization, tweeted after the fight that it was "agreed beforehand" that if Mayweather won, his WBO title would be vacated. He also tweeted that if Pacquiao had won, the WBA and WBC belts would have been vacant.
"At one particular time, I loved the sport of boxing," Mayweather said. "I wanted to go to every fight, I wanted to be at every boxing event. But throughout the years, I just lost the love for the sport.
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"I think Monday, I'm going to relinquish all belts. I made a decision in the back that my last fight might not be a championship fight. I'm going to give up all the belts. It's still going to be a 12-round fight, but I'm going to relinquish all the belts Monday."
- Mike Fiammetta
