Filipino southpaw Dennis Laurente has lost his Oriental Pacific Boxing Federation super welterweight title in a close split decision to Japan's No.1 ranked Takayuki Hosakawa last Sunday, Manila Time.
With the loss the 38 year old veteran Laurente?s record dropped to 49-7-5 with 30 knockouts.
The two Japanese judges both saw it as a very close fight with Sojo Sakamoto turning in a 115-113 scorecard while the other
Japanese judge Hishatoshi Miyazaka had his countryman the winner by an even closer 115-114 margin.
However, Filipino judge Carlo Baluyot turned in what seemed like a ridiculously lopsided scorecard compared to that of
the Japanese judges and had Laurente the winner of 118-110.
Liza Elorde, wife of promoter/manager Johnny Elorde told the New Standard/boxingmirror.com that she felt Laurente should have
been given the decision because he battered Hosakawa from the sixrth round onwards with the Japanese fighter's manager showing them an Xray of Hosakawa's badly broken jaw and claimed he may never fight again.
Ms. Elorde said Laurente went for a knockout but couldn't drop the challenger.
Laurente had won the vacant OPBF title with a 6th round TKO over Tadasi Yuba last December 18, 2014 but unfortunately lost the title in his first defense.
In his last fight, Laurente dropped a unanimous ten round decision to John Jackson in Florida last August 2.
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