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The IBO light heavyweight championship – long the symbol of the truly elite at 175 pounds – is vacant.
Because of an inability to reach a sanctioning agreement with Bernard Hopkins prior to his May 21 fight with Jean Pascal at Bell Centre in Montreal, it was decided going in that a Pascal victory would mean the Haitian-turned-Canadian retained his belt, while a loss wound render the title vacant.
Pascal won the IBO title from consensus No. 1 light heavyweight Chad Dawson in August 2010, continuing a lineage from Roy Jones Jr. to Antonio Tarver to Glen Johnson to Dawson that dated back to 2000 and included some of the division’s signature fights.
Both Tarver-Johnson fights were solely sanctioned as world title bouts by the IBO, as were Tarver’s third match with Jones in October 2005 and Dawson’s rematch with Johnson in November 2009.
A fight between the two leading available contenders will be arranged as soon as possible, said IBO President Ed Levine.
