At the age of 32, John Riel Casimero is one of the most famous boxing boxes in the Philippines at the moment. He used to win the professional boxing championship belt in 3 weight of Light Flyweight, Flyweight and Bantamweight belonging to 2 WBO and IBF organizations. However, Casimero's WBO belt has recently been officially deprived.
Notice from the World Boxing Organization (WBO) said John Riel Casimero was officially deprived of the Bantamweight World World World belt due to not being eligible to participate in the belt protection match at the Resolution event. The fact is that Casimero missed 2 belt protection matches, so it led to the decision mentioned above from WBO.
In the past, Casimero has twice received the belt protection with Paul Butler challenge but all did not play. At the first belt protection scheduled to take place in December last year, Casimero did not appear at the testing ceremony. The Philippine fighter excuses a stomach pain so that he does not have to play in this match and is accepted by WBO.
The match between Casimero and Butler was later moved to April 2022 in Liverpool, England. However, to squeeze the appropriate level in the weighting ceremony, Casimero uses a sauna. This seriously violates the medical regulations of the British Boxing Supervisory Board (BBBOC), so Casimero is not allowed to sign and go to the competition.
To find a replacement boxer for Casimero against Butler, the organizers decided to choose another Filipino fighter, Jonas Sultan. The 12 -round match between Sultan and Butler ended with the victory by calculating the point of the British punch, through which he received the WBO Interim belt.
With Casimero, being stripped of WBO World belt made him be forced to play with Butler in the near future if he wanted to receive the title of the champion. The World WBO belt was officially awarded to Casimero in November 2019 when he defeated the Zolani Tete boxer. He successfully defended this belt twice in September 2020 and August 2021.