Fighting out of Sydney, Filipino Roberto Lerio has won the vacant Australian bantamweight title with a ten round split decision over Jason Cooper at the Norths Rugby League Club in Kallangur, Queensland in a fight card dubbed ?Rising Stars.?
In what surely was a strange twist the 25 year old Lerio who had lost his last 7 fights won the title against the 20 year old Cooper whose record was a mere 2-1-1 with 2 knockouts effectively discarding the two boxers ring records since Lerio had a record of 13-14-1 with 5 knockouts entering the ring.
Two of the three judges scored the fight for Lerio while a third judge had it even.
Adam Height 96-94 and Phil Austin 96-95 scored the fight for Lerio while Tony Kettlewell had Cooper the winner 97-94.
Prior to the fight Cooper, the featherweight champion of Queensland, said he was confident of winning despite dropping down to bantamweight for the title fight. Cooper said ?I?m pretty confident it will hopefully be a stepping stone to the rest of the year? but in the end it didn?t turn out that way.
Cooper?s trainer Damian Smith, the founder of the Deception Bay Boxing Club had said that Cooper was well known for his devastating body shots and was ? looking really good? and ready to go the distance.
Lerio, nicknamed ?Hands of Stone", was coming off a unanimous decision loss to undefeated Corey McConnell on March 7, 2012 while Cooper nicknamed ?Nugget? won his last fight by a 5th round knockout of Matthew Seden last September 30.
Lerio had previously won the Australian super bantamweight title with a win over Mark Quon on December 6, 2008 when he dropped Quon in the 3rd round and was badly cut in the seventh after a clash of heads with Lerio winning a 7th round technical decision.
However, Lerio lost when he went down a division and fought for the bantamweight title losing to Fred Mundraby by a 6th round TKO on April 26, 2009.
Lerio is trained by former Australian champion and one time Manny Pacquiao opponent, Todd Makelim at the OutWest Fight Club in Eschol Park, Sydney.
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