By Rick Reeno
Floyd Mayweather Jr. has praised his most recent opponent, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, for refusing to face Erislandy Lara for the WBA's "'regular" junior middleweight title. The World Boxing Association has multiple champions in several divisions. Mayweather also holds the WBA's title at 154, but the sanctioning body regards him as the "super champion."
Mayweather decisioned Canelo last September in Las Vegas. And while Canelo is still going to fight Lara on July 12th at the MGM Grand, the Mexican star refused to have the WBA title at stake because he views Mayweather as the real WBA champion of the junior middleweight division.
"I can't do nothing but take my hat off to the guy, because he is stepping up to the plate. That's how we clean up the sport. Even the Shane Mosley thing, the move that he made I can respect that. When Shane was the WBA champion. I didn't fight him for his belt, but when I beat him - technically he wasn't really the WBA welterweight champion so he relinquished the belt. Stuff like that I can respect. I take my hat off to guys , because that's called cleaning up the sport of boxing," Mayweather said.
Mayweather wants the fighters to come together and eliminate all of these "regular" titles and "interim" titles and "silver" titles.
"I total disagee with that interim belt stuff. I totally disagree. They need to get that out of boxing. They talk about cleaing up the sport. If I'm going to be in the sport - interim belts need to get out of boxing. These guys get thinking they are real champions. Two guys carrying the same belt in the ring and they are like 'which one is the champion.' As far as the interim-belts, we need to get that out of boxing," Mayweather said.
