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The World Boxing Organization (WBO) is a sanctioning organization currently recognizing professional boxing world champions. Its offices are located in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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History
The WBO started after a group of Puerto Rican and Dominican businessmen broke out of the World Boxing Association's 1988 annual convention in Isla Margarita, Venezuela, claiming to be disgusted by the WBA's questionable rules and ratings systems.[clarify]
The WBO's first president was Ramon Pina Acevedo of the Dominican Republic. Soon after its beginning, the WBO was staging world championship bouts around the globe. Its first championship fight was for its vacant super middleweight title, between Thomas Hearns and James Kinchen; Hearns won by decision. In order to gain respectability, the WBO next elected former world light heavyweight champion Jose Torres of Ponce, Puerto Rico, as its president. Torres left in 1996, giving way to Puerto Rican lawyer Francisco Varcarcel as president. Varcarcel has been there since.
The WBO was made popular by boxers such as Oscar De La Hoya, Marco Antonio Barrera, Naseem Hamed, Michael Carbajal, Johnny Tapia, Harry Simon, Nigel Benn, Gerald McClellan, Joe Calzaghe, Steve Collins, Michael Moorer, Dariusz Michalczewski, Chris Eubank, Vitali Klitschko, Wladimir Klitschko and Chris Byrd in the 1990s.
The WBO twice moved Darrin Morris up in its super-middleweight rankings in 2001, despite the fact that he was dead. Morris was #7 at the time of his death and #5 when the WBO discovered the error. Varcarcel said "we obviously missed the fact that Darrin was dead. It is regrettable." One week after British newspaper The Independent broke the story, one of the three men ranking the boxers, Gordon Volkman, still had not heard that Morris was dead.[1]
Current WBO world title holders
Former champions
WBO affiliated organizations
- North American Boxing Organization (NABO)
- WBO LATINO (LATINO)
- WBO Asia-Pacific
Transition of WBO titles
- List of WBO world champions
- List of WBO Asia Pacific champions
- List of WBO Inter-Continental champions
- List of WBO Latino champions
Other boxing organizations
- World Boxing Association (WBA)
- World Boxing Council (WBC)
- International Boxing Federation (IBF)
- European Boxing Federation (EBF)
