Badou Jack has vacated the world title he won on the undercard of Conor McGregor vs Floyd Mayweather.
Technically, there were four belts up for grabs on the night of the Money Fight, albeit, the one Badou Jack won was easily the most prestigious.
Floyd Mayweather earned the frightfully gaudy and completed fabricated Money Belt for his 10th round knockout of Conor McGregor. Despite finishing Francisco Fonseca, Gervonta Davis was forced to vacate his IBF junior lightweight title after missing weight. Andrew Tibiti got to keep the USBA cruiserweight title for comprehensively beating Steve Cunningham on the opening fight of the main card.
However, one month after becoming the WBA light heavyweight champion by retiring Nathan Cleverly, Jack has vacated the championship.
#AndTheNew WBA Light Heavyweight Champion by TKO5 @BadouJack #CleverlyJack pic.twitter.com/xGkG8zWONv
— WBA Boxing (@WBABoxing) August 27, 2017
The fifth round knockout win meant that Jack (22-1-2, 13 KOs) was lined up to fight mandatory challenger Dmitry Bivol (11-0, 9 KOs). The World Boxing Association had scheduled a purse bid for Jack vs Bivol on September 25, but that has passed with Jack opting to vacate the title rather than fight the undefeated, hard-hitting Russian.
Interim champion Bivol will now have to fight the next highest challenger for the vacant belt which, going by the rankings, will either be Sullivan Barrera or Oleksandr Gvozdyk.
It is unknown why Jack decided to end his title reign without a single defence, but he has been campaigning for a fight against WBC champion Adonis Stevenson (29-1), while Andre Ward’s retirement means that the WBA, IBF, WBO and the Ring titles are all vacant. Perhaps a bout against Sergey Kovalev for one of these straps is in his sights.
