FLOYD MAYWEATHER will become a WBC Champion Emeritus, Mauricio Sulaiman told ESPN Deportes at the WBC Convention in China.

While that status means he would be able to come out of retirement and challenge for a title, Mayweather’s WBC welterweight and super-welterweight titles will become vacant. The precedent is there with former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko being afforded a position as Emeritus champion when he hung up his gloves. It never tempted him out of retirement.

The move also means the newly vacant titles can be contested, Amir Khan and Danny Garcia for instance sit appealingly high in the WBC welterweight ratings.