By Salvador Rodriguez

World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman has approved a request by Floyd Mayweather Jr. to defend both of his WBC titles, at welterweight and junior middleweight, against Marcos Maidana on September 13th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Mayweather also holds the WBA crown at 147 and 154.

Sulaiman compares Mayweather's historic request to Sugar Ray Leonard's fight with Donnie Lalonde in November of 1988, when the WBC super middleweight and light heavyweight titles were both at stake in the same fight.

"It is an important historic event, because it gives recognition to a great champion like Mayweather, and at the time [in 1998 that recognition] was given to Sugar Ray Leonard. There are situations in which you should have that flexibility where you don't disrupt the development of fighters. There is currently no mandatory challenger at welterweight and super welterweight, no boxer is getting hurt [in this move]. It's something that places Mayweather in a very exclusive group in boxing history. His loyalty to the organization has been exemplary and this is also a way to show our loyalty to him," Sulaiman said.