Why Did Floyd Mayweather Never Become the Undisputed Champion?

Floyd Mayweather, the five-division unbeaten world champion, might boast of one of the best resumes of all time in boxing. Going up against 50 elites, Mayweather has vanquished all of his rivals in style and continues to embrace exhibition fights in his post-retirement career.

However, Mayweather could never become the undisputed champion and it’s one tag that will be absent from his remarkable career achievements. In an over two-decade professional run, Mayweather never ran away from the competition. He faced every world champion in his way and emerged as the greatest superstar of boxing.

However, he could never unify all the organizational belts at one weight class. He beat Manny Pacquiao for the WBC, WBA, and WBO welterweight titles in 2015. But that’s the closest Floyd Mayweather ever came to unifying the division.

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Heavyweight legend Evander Holyfield has also pointed at how Mayweather missed out on being the undisputed champ. As reported by Boxing Scene, ‘The Real Deal’ had connected with Kevin Iole to shed opinion on Mayweather’s greatness.

“My whole thing [is this], he is a great fighter. But to actually say that [he’s beaten everyone], you’ve got to be the undisputed. You need to get all the belts at one time and let everybody know that I beat everybody who had a belt and I am undisputed,” said Evander Holyfield.

Meanwhile, Mayweather doesn’t believe the same. According to him, he has been the undisputed champion and has his logic to validate the claim.

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Floyd Mayweather – Is he really the undisputed champ?

In interaction with FightHype, Mayweather revealed that being undisputed doesn’t require having all four belts of boxing (WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF). That said, Mayweather counts his win over Pacquiao as a title unification on his behalf.

Mayweather said, “A lot of times, people fail to realize this. They don’t know when we talk about undisputed, to be the undisputed champion you have to have three or more belts, not all four. You know, three or four of the organizations.”

The undisputed championship brings an overall reign over a particular division for a boxer. Although Mayweather claims to have achieved it, he never held all four titles simultaneously. Hence, many fans might not consider him as one of boxing’s undisputed champions. However, Mayweather isn’t bothered about that.

In his career, Mayweather has always shot for lucrative fight offers. He has faced every prime boxer in his path and didn’t let the contractual turmoils hamper his plans. So, it can be a reason why Mayweather couldn’t deploy much time in one division, aiming to unify all the straps.

His outer-ring ventures also demanded a lot of time. Thus, Mayweather attained it all in the sport, apart from being the undisputed world champion.

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