Mayweather still holding titles despite retirement

It's hard to get any firm grasp on boxing's sanctioning bodies, mostly because they seemingly make up their processes as they go along, but some of their decisions are harder to understand than others. When Floyd Mayweather beat rival Manny Pacquiao in May, he declared that he would be vacating all of his titles to give the next generation of fighters a chance to become champions.

Except despite what he publicly said he would do, he actually never did vacate any of his titles, and was eventually stripped by the WBO for not adhering to their rules -- namely the one about holding belts in multiple weight classes. The WBC and WBA, on the other hand, have routinely bent over backwards for Mayweather, not enforcing their own rules when it comes to him.

Neither the WBC nor WBA allow fighters to hold titles in multiple weight classes, but they've allowed Mayweather to over the last couple of years. In fact, Mayweather hadn't even defended his WBC junior middleweight title in two years time, and the WBC never even bothered to name a mandatory defense during that period.

It was at least expected that after Mayweather announced his retirement from the sport, the sanctioning bodies would declare Mayweather's titles vacant at welterweight and junior middleweight - but that hasn't happened. While the WBA has supposedly told ESPN that they would eventually vacate their titles, they don't appear to be in any rush to do so.

Likewise, the WBC says they won't address Mayweather's title situation until their annual convention in November. Some aren't happy that this is dragging out, thinking the titles should be immediately available for active fighters to vie for - but the sanctioning bodies only move when they want to.