Floyd Mayweather has beaten many champions throughout his career and has never fought for a vacant title. Floyd has earned his titles and currently holds two different titles (WBC and WBA) in both the welterweight and junior middleweight divisions and is the legitimate champion. He believes that champions should fight and win their their titles legitimately and not fight for vacant belts. Mayweather also feels that if a champion loses in a non title bout then he should vacate his title. One champion that he openly criticized and mentioned by name is Lamont Peterson.
“When I fought Shane Mosley, he was the WBA champion, but when I beat him, he was like, ‘I’m relinquishing this. I’m getting rid of this belt.’ You can respect a champion for that. You can take your hat off to guys for doing stuff like that,” said Mayweather in a recent interview with Fight Hype. “Whereas the kid from DC who lost, I don’t really know his name, the Peterson brother who got knocked out [Lamont Peterson], he’s a good fighter, a really good fighter, both brothers, but he wants to parade around here with the belt? I mean, I respect him as a fighter, but I don’t respect moves like that. If a guy beat me, I’d be like, Yo, I’m getting rid of this belt. Let me go back to the drawing board and come back and beat a guy for the belt. One thing about Floyd Mayweather, I never fought for a vacant belt. Not saying that I wouldn’t, but I haven’t. Every belt that I got, I went out there and beat a guy, and I earned it the hard way.”
