On October 3, the WBO World Championship Committee issued a ruling granting sanction approval of the WBO/IBF unified middleweight championship contest between Zhanibek Alimkhanuly and Andrei Milkhailovich scheduled for October 4 in Australia. The Alimkhanuly/Milkhailovich was conducted, but only the IBF middleweight championship was at stake.
According to WBO rules, any champion who conducts a contest in the champion’s weight division which is not a defense of the title can result in that title being vacated.
Team Alimkhanuly has now been ordered to “SHOW CAUSE” within the next 5 days as to why the WBO should not declare their middleweight championship “vacant” due to failure to comply with terms and conditions
established in the “resolution” dated October 3.
Mikhailovich was the WBO’s #4 ranked fighter. Their #1 is Hamzah Sheeraz, after the IBF updates their rankings, he’ll be #1 for everyone besides the WBA. They can order Janibek to fight Sheeraz (or whoever they want) to satisfy their mandatory in his next fight and that’ll be that.
Basically the wbo wants sanctioning fees. They could care less who the opponent was.