The World Boxing Council ratifies the ceremony of December 20, 2005, in Cancun, Mexico, where Hasim Rahman will be officially confirmed as the WBC heavyweight champion of the world and presented with the green belt.
A purse offer will be held during the ceremony in case that Rahman and James Toney, his first official challenger, do not reach an agreement for the mandatory title bout by December 20.
A split of the purse has been voted to be 60% for champion Rahman and 40% for Toney by the voting of the Board of Governors, which was 26 votes in favor of 60-40%, three votes in favor of 70-30%, and two votes in favor of 55-45%, while two votes were not received.
When the champion or the challenger request the WBC for a change of split of the percentage of a purse offer, the WBC has four considerations in their rules:
a) 70-30% in mandatory defenses.
b) 50-50% in vacant titles or elimination bouts.
c) 60-40% when champion and challenger are stars in star fights, and when both have similar proven marketing value, and
d) 55-45% for champion and interim champion; when there is an appeal, it could be a 55-45% on superstar champion and challenger and superstar fights with the highest marketing value of both.
Vitali Klitschko, the former champion who brought prestige to the heavyweight championship of the world, will receive an Emeritus Champion belt, which makes him automatically a WBC World Ambassador for Peace and Good Will in the World.
The ceremony will be held at Le Meridien Hotel and it will fall into the federal, state and county government efforts to show the world that Cancun is strongly coming back after the devastating effects of Hurricane Wilma.
There will be a very important ceremony in Cancun to honor the attending champions and challengers with Oleg Maskaev, from Kazakhstan, who was voted by the board of Governors as the next official challenger with whom the winner of Rahman and Toney must mandatorily fight next.
