World Boxing Organization

The World Boxing Organization (WBO) is a sanctioning organization currently recognizing professional boxing world champions. Its offices are located in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

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.^{[clarification needed]}

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

Weight class:	Title holder:	Date won:
Mini flyweight	Donnie Nietes	September 30 2007
Junior flyweight	Ivan Calderón	August 25 2007
Flyweight	Omar Andrés Narváez	July 13 2002
Junior bantamweight	Fernando Montiel	April 9 2005
Bantamweight	Gerry Peñalosa	August 11 2007
Junior featherweight	Juan Manuel Lopez	June 7 2008
Featherweight	Steven Luevano	July 14 2007
Junior lightweight	Alex Arthur	May 15 2008
Lightweight	Nate Campbell	March 8 2008
Junior welterweight	Kendall Holt	July 5 2008
Welterweight	Paul Williams	June 7 2008
Junior middleweight	Sergiy Dzinziruk	December 3 2005
Middleweight	Kelly Pavlik	September 29 2007
Super middleweight	Vacant	October 11 2007
Light heavyweight	Zsolt Erdei	January 17 2004
Cruiserweight	David Haye	March 8 2008
Heavyweight	Wladimir Klitschko	February 23 2008